
Glass, 



Book 



VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 



VOLLEYS FROM A 
NON-COMBATANT 

BY 
WILLIAM ROSCOE THAYER 

Author of 

"The Life and Times of Cavour," "The Life of 

John Hay," "Germany versus Civilization," 

"The Collapse of Superman," Etc. 




"Charge once more, then, and be dumb ! 
Let the victors, when they come, . . 
Find thy body by the wall." 

— Matthew Arnold 



Garden City New York 

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 

1919 






COPYRIGHT, I917, I918, I9I9, BY 

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF 

TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, 

INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN 



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it-ry 

4£. 



COPYRIGHT, 1917, 1918, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT, I918, BY D. APPLETON & COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT, 1917, I918, BY THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW PUBLISHING COMPANY 






h 



*- 52 
3 * 



To 
CHARLES DOWNER HAZEN 

Professor of History in Columbia University 
HISTORIAN, PATRIOT, FRIEND 



PREFACE 

Dear Hazen : I dedicate this little book to you 
because, if you had not said that you thought such 
a collection might be useful to refer to hereafter, 
I should hardly have decided to reprint it. I know 
too well how fugitive such pieces must be, but I 
know, also, how grateful the historian is when he 
comes upon them and finds in them the expression 
of a party, or it may, as in this case, of a mere 
individual, during a great crisis. Assuredly, I 
speak only for myself, but perhaps some readers 
will find in these papers, as you do, certain symp- 
toms without a knowledge of which no one can 
hope to understand the changing attitude of 
America toward the Atrocious War. 

From the beginning of August, 1914, when the 
German Kaiser forced this war upon the world, I 
believed that it was a contest in which Germany 
strove to destroy Civilization and to substitute 
for it the barbaric German Kultur — the negation 
of moral law, the system in which the shameless 
deceit and unimagined cruelty of German selfish- 
ness embodied themselves. I underestimated the 



viii PREFACE 

immense advantage which forty years of prepara- 
tion gave the Germans at the start. I thought that 
England and France on the west and Russia on 
the east would be able to halt the Germans quickly. 
But the rapid retreat to the Marne and the Russian 
rout at the Mazurian Lakes showed me my mis- 
take; and when the Germans, driven back by Joffre 
and Foch, dug in at the Aisne, I feared that the 
struggle must be long. But I did not doubt then, 
nor have I ever doubted since, what the outcome 
would be. First : because I do not believe that the 
Powers of Evil can root out Righteousness from the 
world; and next, because, looking at history, I 
saw that every modern attempt to dominate Eu- 
rope — by the Spanish in the sixteenth century, 
by the French under Louis XIV in the seventeenth 
century, and by Napoleon a hundred years ago — 
had been foiled and shattered by England. So 
England's part in this war seemed to me a very 
cheering portent. 

The English are often slow; they rather pride 
themselves on their ability to muddle through: 
compared with the Germans, they make war like 
amateurs; but the plain historical fact is, that they 
have looked every would-be European conqueror 
for the last four hundred years squarely in the 
eyes, and have seen him go down before them. 



PREFACE ix 

Had the conceit of William II of Hohenzollern 
not been so colossal that it made him appear, to 
himself, greater than the anaemic Gott whom he 
claimed for partner, he would have been very 
careful not to range England against Germany 
in a life-or-death struggle. 

Seeing that the war was the culmination of the 
rivalry between Democracy and Autocracy, be- 
tween Liberty and Bondage, which had been going 
on for more than a century, I had no doubt that 
the United States ought openly and at once to 
take their stand on the side of Freedom and Jus- 
tice. I loathed the German propaganda which 
tried to poison Americans into thinking that no 
oath, no pledge is sacred; that solemn treaties are 
mere scraps of paper; that, in war, Germans may 
burn and slay, may outrage women, crucify men, 
bayonet children and infants, deport men into in- 
dustrial slavery and women and girls into infamous 
sexual bondage, bombard hospitals, sink hospital 
ships and merchant vessels loaded with neutrals 
and non-combatants, and still expect to be re- 
garded as men and not as demons. For lack of 
another word, we call them Prussians. To prevent 
the total pollution of our people by the letting 
loose of the Prussian moral sewers — which, appar- 
ently, no one in authority did anything to check — 



x PREFACE 

I deemed it the duty of every one of us who saw 
this danger and who recognized above all our na- 
tional contribution to Freedom, to force the United 
States to join the Allies. Ever since we broke 
with Germany in April, 1917, our duty, it seemed 
to me, was to support the war with might and main 
and to oppose at every turn the votaries of Paci- 
fism, Bolshevism, and all forms under which the 
friends and agents of the Kaiser pursued their sly 
work here. 

While the topics discussed in these papers seem, 
therefore, somewhat miscellaneous, they have, 
nevertheless, this underlying unity. I reprint 
them in their original form, except for some neces- 
sary correction of type or phrase, because such 
symptomatic essays lose their value if, on reprinting, 
they are corrected up to date. Any one can be a 
prophet after the event. In general, each paper 
expresses what I felt to be a need of the time when 
it was written; for a danger which must be faced, 
must be understood in order to be crushed. I lay 
no more claim to serenity than to neutrality. 
I have noticed in this crisis that the men who 
boasted of being "impartial," were either pro- 
German, or they had no hearts to beat faster al- 
though the fate of mankind hung in the balance. 

To the title "Volleys from a Non-Combatant," 



PREFACE X i 

I would gladly add "Unwilling"; because, as you 
know, had Fate permitted, I should have been an 
active combatant, although far beyond the draft 
age. That arbitrary limit should never shut out 
any man, provided he is robust physically, and 
firm in health. Let us never forget that age does 
not disqualify Marshal Foch who has already 
thrice saved Civilization and is now giving Moloch, 
in his Prussian incarnation, his final quietus. 
Foch is nearly three score years and ten old. 

I never see a battalion of our soldiers drilling, 
or marching along the street, without envying 
them. I never say good-bye to any young friend 
in uniform starting for France, without envying 
him his great opportunity to show, whether he 
live or die, that he is willing to sacrifice himself for 
those supreme things without which civilized 
men cannot live. But a disabling infirmity has 
forced me into the pitiful ranks of the Unwilling 
Non-Combatants. Finding that I could only 
stand and wait, I was reduced to writing. Hence 
these pale records of a spirit which craved a differ- 
ent outlet. 

Faithfully yours, 
William Roscoe Thayer. 

Cambridge, October 25, igi8 



CONTENTS 



PAGB 



Preface vii 

CHAPTER 

I. The Collapse of Superman ... 3 

II. America's International Relations . 44 

III. Are the Hohenzollerns Doomed ? . 67 

IV. John Hay/s Policy of Anglo-Saxonism 84 
V. Beware of a Judas Peace . . . 117 

VI. Despotism by the Dregs .... 153 

VII. Italy's Great Service in the War . 182 

VIII. John Hay's Good Deed in a Naughty 

World 207 

IX. Campaigning for Dupes: Are You 

One? 238 

X. Out of Their Own Mouths ... 263 

XI. France: 1916 275 

XII. Let Foch Decide! 278 

XIII. Prussia's Pewter Napoleon . . . 280 

XIV. Italy and the Adriatic: Peace Terms 299 

an 



VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 



Volleys from a Non-Combatarit 



THE COLLAPSE OF SUPERMAN 1 

A FEW years ago a strange myth went up and 
down the world. We were told that the 
Germans were supermen; and as they themselves 
said so, which of us could doubt it ? For the Ger- 
mans had once a high reputation for scientific 
precision, and it could not be supposed that either 
this or their native modesty would permit them to 
magnify, by even a hair's breadth, their virtues 
or their attainments. 

If you repeat a declaration often enough, the 
world either dismisses you as a bore, or kills you 
as a fanatic, or ends by believing you. In one 
way or another it gets rid of you. So the German 
claim was believed without a thorough sifting of 
the evidence. 

If in a company of ordinary men all but one 

•This was printed in the Saturday Evening Post, Philadelphia, November 
10, 1917, under the title: "The Collapse of the Superman Myth." Re- 
printed in book form by Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin Co., Boston, January 
25, 1918. Written in October, 1916. 

3 



4 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

should shrink to Lilliputian size, that one, simply 
by keeping his natural proportions, would be a 
giant among them. This is what the German 
Gullivers assured us had happened; and appear- 
ances seemed to confirm them. 

In the course of a generation the Germans had 
surpassed the other nations in applying science to 
industry. In some commodities their brands 
were the best; in nearly all their average was better 
than that of their competitors. Though they 
made few of the cardinal discoveries in science or 
in invention, they quickly caught up, and adapted 
or improved the discoveries of others. 

They organized a system of education as com- 
plete as that of the Jesuits and quite as far-reach- 
ing; for it took the German child from the time he 
left the kindergarten and guided him until he left 
the university. It developed his mental faculties 
to work most efficiently according to the com- 
mands of his official masters; it taught him rever- 
ence for discipline; it revealed to him the import- 
ance of patient labour on subjects which se'emed 
infinitesimal or irrelevant. During the first three 
quarters of the nineteenth century this German 
education had also scientific accuracy, or truth, 
as its aim; and it was so fruitful that scholars from 
Europe and America went to Germany to profit 



THE COLLAPSE OF SUPERMAN 5 

by it, while German professors strode over the 
earth investigating, taking notes, and adorning 
the landscape with their robust — if not always 
Apollonian — figures. 

Greater than any discovery in science, however, 
was the German discovery that if you have many 
millions of persons all trained by the same method, 
you can treat them as you could so many million 
empty rifles — you can load each with your favourite 
cartridge and aim it at whatever target you choose. 
And this is what actually happened. When Ger- 
man education had reduced, or raised, the Germans 
to the level of perfect machines, their master, 
swollen with military ambition and with dynastic 
ends, came along and loaded them for his own 
purposes. In old times every American colonist 
kept his gun within easy reach, lest he should need 
it to shoot at an unexpected Indian or bear. 
Wonderful is it to think that ten million or more 
Germans — living flesh-and-blood Germans — stood 
ready, like so many mechanical weapons, devoid 
of will, judgment, or choice — empty barrels — to be 
loaded and fired in whatever direction their master 
aimed them. 

When the Germans saw that other peoples 
lacked their own astonishing organization, they 
began to feel contempt for them; and this con- 



6 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

tempt reacted so as to puff up their own self- 
esteem. They drew the unsafe deduction that 
all methods except theirs must be bad. Which 
of us has not had the privilege of listening to the 
German Gelehrter, the sum of whose talk, lecture, or 
harangue has been: "What I don't know isn't 
knowledge"? And, in truth, is Gulliver to be 
blamed for perceiving that he is a giant in compari- 
son with the Lilliputians around him? Gulliver 
had no reason for suspecting that his eyes were 
out of order; why should the Germans suppose that 
they were suffering from unbridled vanity — that 
disease for which no oculist has a remedy? If 
they applied scientific tests, they got results that 
confirmed them, for to them science had become a 
mirror that reflected their own figures. Cold 
statistics proved that they were beating their 
competitors in industrial progress; that they had 
the largest number of available soldiers in propor- 
tion to population; that they excelled in the de- 
tails of municipal government; that they counted 
fewer illiterates than their neighbours; and so on — 
each proof serving to stimulate their megalomania. 
We ordinary mortals, who have never had the 
slightest reason for supposing that we are taller 
than our fellows, must not be too harsh toward the 
Teutons who suffered from this illusion. Each of 



THE COLLAPSE OF SUPERMAN 7 

us doubtless cherishes his particular vanity — 
small, of course, in keeping with his non-German 
size. If we are immune from megalomania the 
credit is due to our insignificance, for that malady 
attacks only the great; and therefore the Germans, 
more than any other people to-day, are likely to 
catch it. In their case it had become epidemic 
by the year 1914. So far as it appears, no single 
German remained to say then: "Brethren, perhaps 
we are really not so colossal as we think. Let us 
take a foreign yardstick and measure ourselves 
again." Instead of this the gospel of the super- 
man was shouted into every Teutonic ear. The 
Prussians remembered that they had won three 
wars, and they knew that in all the world they had 
the most powerful military organization, prepared 
for use at a moment's notice. The supremacy 
of German music, of German education — but why 
specify? — of German everything, needed no dem- 
onstration. Even peasant Michel exulted in the 
conviction that he was a superpeasant and that he 
enjoyed the luxury, unknown to his class in other 
countries, of eating superturnip and supersausage. 
Obviously the superman could not be satisfied 
with the philosophy, ethics, or religion by which 
ordinary men lived. The giant must have the 
giant's robe, not the swaddling clothes of an infant. 



8 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

So the prophets of supermania devised a philo- 
sophical and ethical system which embodied its 
ideals, and they created a deity they called Gott — 
a strangely composite creature who, when analyzed, 
turns out to be four parts war god of the Goth-and- 
Vandal type and one part Frederick the Great. 
The care of Gott they confided to their supreme 
superman, the Kaiser, who had been assuring them 
for twenty-five years that he knew better than 
any one else what Gott wished. Even mortals 
admitted that it was proper that the mere Al- 
mighty should be in charge of the Almightiest. 
Religion has not been the forte of the Pan-German- 
ists. Listen to the words of an avowed atheist, 
Professor Wilhelm Ostwald, the first of the German 
Exchange Professors at Harvard, whose incorrig- 
ible Prussian condescension, flecked with occa- 
sional efforts at ursine affability, is still cheerfully 
remembered there. He said in 1914: "In our 
country, God the Father is reserved for the personal 
use of the Emperor. In one instance He was men- 
tioned in a report of the General Staff, but it is 
to be noted that He has not appeared there a second 
time." 1 

The epidemic of supermania among the Ger- 
mans might have been no more than a grotesque 

'Interview in the Paris Temps, November 26, 1914. 



THE COLLAPSE OF SUPERMAN 9 

diversion in the humdrum of life — as when chil- 
dren at their play make believe that they are ogres 
and giants, kings and emperors — had it not been 
that the supermen were taught that they must 
prove their superiority by subduing or by de- 
stroying their neighbours; that war was the normal 
exercise of supermen, the only exercise, in fact, by 
which they could prosper. If you tell a man you 
are a Hercules and he shakes his head doubtingly, 
you need simply to kill him in order to kill his 
doubt. As long as you let him live, you will be 
haunted by the thought that there is at least one 
person who does not take you at your own valua- 
tion. In civilized countries, however, the individ- 
ual who resorts to this simple means runs the risk 
of being tried and hanged for homicide. 

It hath the primal eldest curse upon *t, 
A brother's murder. 

Nevertheless, when a nation of supermen adopt 
the precedent of Cain, they expect either to exter- 
minate their victims or so to crush them that there 
will be no reprisals. Cain, it should be said, seems 
to have been a hot-headed youth who killed his 
brother in a fit of anger: the German superman, on 
the contrary, does nothing without premeditation. 
His Kaiser having revealed to him the inmost pur- 



io VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

poses of Gott, and German science having con- 
firmed the Kaiser's revelations, the superman 
puts them into action. It is as easy as pulling the 
strings of a jumping-jack. 

Again let us not be too hard on the Germans for 
becoming infatuated with the gospel of super- 
mania! Suppose that we Americans were told by 
our rulers, statesmen, prophets, philosophers, cap- 
tains of industry, drummers, editors, parsons, pro- 
fessors, statisticians, for thirty years together, that 
we are the Chosen People, could we resist the flat- 
tering imputation? Do we always close our ears 
when political spellbinders let loose the American 
Eagle amid a whirlwind of patriotic eloquence? 
Probably not; and yet all the spellbinders in the 
United States could never persuade all the Ameri- 
cans to think alike at any given moment. Therein 
Americans and other civilized peoples differ from 
the Germans. But let us not be conceited over 
this; whatever credit there is belongs to Nature, 
who made Yankees each with an individual think- 
ing piece which secretes daily its necessary supply 
of thoughts. 

Nature delights in variety, however, and so she 
made Germans each with a thought cavity in his 
skull — a cavity that remains empty unless the 
agent of the Kaiser, or State, comes round every 



THE COLLAPSE OF SUPERMAN n 

morning with canned thoughts, which he pours 
into it just as a housewife fills her lamps with oil 
or a chauffeur his tank with gasolene. 

So much for what we may call the potential 
superman; so much for the estimate that the Ger- 
mans put upon themselves and caused even for- 
eigners to accept. Let us now see how far these 
supermen in action have come up to expectations. 

II 

At the end of July, 1914, William and his ad- 
visers — if, indeed, he allows any one to advise him 
— believed that the enemies against whom they 
had long been plotting were so unprepared that it 
would be easy to crush them by sudden attack. 
For several weeks Germany had been making 
such preparations for mobilizing her armies as 
she could without exciting suspicion. Naturally, 
at the beginning of August, when the German 
troops invaded France and Belgium, they took 
the French and Belgian armies almost by surprise. 
Alone among the forces of the western Allies the 
British fleet was mobilized. The German super- 
men swept through Belgium and northeastern 
France, outnumbering the hastily assembled troops 
of their adversaries three or four to one; but even 
this disparity in their favour would not have given 



12 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

them their swift success if it had not been for their 
gigantic howitzers, which demolished fortifications 
supposed to be impregnable. 

So far it appears that neither in those early 
combats nor later did the German soldiers win in 
open fight against an equal number of foes. The 
same was true in the war of 1870. 1 This is a 
strange record for supermen! A German super- 
man, we might innocently think, ought to be a 
match for at least three or four French or British 
fighters. It turned out, however, that it was the 
German readiness, the superior equipment, and, 
above all, the surprise, which gave the Kaiser his 
immense and immediate advantage. And yet 
with all these elements and Prussian prestige — 
which had become a legend — in his favour, he was 
not able to achieve his purpose. His triumphal 
entry into Paris — to celebrate which, with true 
German thoroughness, he struck a medal before 



J In 1866, in the war between Prussia and Austria, the Prussians had 
221,000 troops at the decisive battle of Sadowa, the Austrians had only 
200,000. In the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the inequalities were still 
greater. At Woerth the Germans numbered 84,000, the French 39,000. 
At Gravelotte, the Germans had 205,000, the French 39,000. At Reichs- 
hofen, the Germans 180,000, the French 45,000. At St. Privat, the Ger- 
mans, 80,000, the French 18,000. At Sedan the Germans 220,000, the 
French 100,000. These figures pay a high tribute to the German strategy 
which always contrived to bring a larger force than the enemy's into battle; 
they do not, however, exalt the German soldier in a man-to-man contest with 
foreign foes. 



THE COLLAPSE OF SUPERMAN 13 

the war began — never took place. At the end of 
the first week in September the French, under 
Manoury, made a sudden dash on the German 
right, which upset Von Kluck's plans and so thor- 
oughly dislocated the entire strategy of the Ger- 
man General Staff that on September 9th Foch's 
army drove like a thunderbolt through the German 
centre, saved Paris, sent all the Kaiser's forces in 
full retreat eastward and northward, pricked the 
supermen's dream of world dominion, and saved 
civilization. 

Here again we are perplexed. Which were the 
supermen — the German centre of Prussian Guards 
and Saxons, who crumbled before Foch's French- 
men, or those Frenchmen themselves? Would it 
be correct to define a German superman as one 
who cannot stand up against a mere ordinary 
foreign man? The ninety-three professors who 
certified to the moral, not less than to the military, 
perfection of Germany, would dissent from this; 
and yet how does it profit you to be a superman if 
you run before any smaller variety of men? 

Looking back, we see that the German occupa- 
tion of Belgium and northeastern France was due 
to preparation and surprise, and not to any super- 
human quality; and this is true of all the Teutonic 
successes during the first two years of the war. 



i 4 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

The Germans invariably had either larger forces 
or far superior equipment, or both. They ac- 
complished their great drive into Russia at a time 
when the Russian supply of munitions was ex- 
hausted. For the Germans to sweep almost de- 
fenseless masses of Russians before them was, 
therefore, a scarcely more glorious feat than it was 
for the Spaniards to put to rout the Aztecs with 
their bows and arrows, or for the heroic ranchmen 
who dropped from the fatigue of slaughtering 
rabbits in a drive. Search where we will, we find 
nothing supermannish in such victories. 

Ah, but does not the perfect preparation indicate 
the superman? Let us examine. If you had 
spent your life, from boyhood up, using dumb-bells, 
should you expect to qualify as a superman if in 

a competition with your neighbours, who had de- 

i 

voted themselves to golf and tennis and yachting, 
you should lift with ease the heaviest dumb-bell, 
which the strongest of them could not stir ? Hardly. 
Well, for fifty years the Prussians had made mili- 
tarism the chief business of life; wherever possible 
they applied each new invention to improving 
their arms and equipment; they indulged in three 
wars, which gave them invaluable practice. They 
foresaw that logistics would be not less important 
than strategy or tactics in the conflict they were 



THE COLLAPSE OF SUPERMAN 15 

secretly preparing for. Nor should we minimize 
the stimulating effect which the knowledge that he 
would be called upon to serve in an enterprise for 
the glory of the Fatherland, and with certain suc- 
cess in sight, produced on each recruit. 

None of this militarist training went on in Great 
Britain, where the army in peace time, composed 
of volunteers, numbered less than two hundredths 
per cent, of the population, and since the Crimea 
had never faced a European enemy. France, 
on the contrary, had been compelled by the Ger- 
man menace to maintain a large armament; but 
her purpose being defense and not aggression, she 
conscripted relatively fewer men than did the Ger- 
mans; and her population numbered less than forty 
millions, while Germany's was nearly seventy mil- 
lions. Her military system was also less efficiently 
carried out. Russia, likewise, and Italy had con- 
scription and imitated German methods, but 
without German thoroughness. 

It is not unfair to say, accordingly, that when 
Germany sprang the test of ordeal by battle on her 
European neighbours they were scarcely less ready 
than were the competitors of our expert in dumb- 
bells to cope with him. To argue from their ene- 
mies' unpreparedness that the Germans were 
supermen would violate any logic based on reason. 



16 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

And here a grotesque conundrum suggests itself: 
If it took the Germans, by devoting their chief 
attention to militarism, forty years to organize a 
magnificent army, and if it has taken the English, 
a non-militarist nation, two years to organize an 
army equal and in some respects superior to the 
German, who are the supermen? 

Perhaps I am not deferent enough to the super- 
man; but I deny that anything — whether a kaiser 
made of flesh and blood or a Krupp gun made of 
steel — should be an object of servile reverence, 
much less of worship. If I were hunting for a 
superman I should look for him in someone who 
achieved great victories against great odds. This 
has not been true of the Germans in the present 
war. Hindenburg in East Prussia and Poland, 
Mackensen in Galicia and the Balkans, Falken- 
hayn in Rumania, and the generals who led the 
dash into France and Belgium — all had great odds 
in their favour. As soon as the Allies rose any- 
where near to an equality with them, the German 
spectacular successes ceased. 

Even the fact that at the beginning of the war 
the total available man power of the Germans was 
only one-half that of the Allies does npt entitle 
them to pose as supermen, for their geographical 
position and the abundance of their means of trans- 



THE COLLAPSE OF SUPERMAN 17 

portation more than doubled — probably it trebled 
— their military potentiality. No other country 
in Europe had so fine a natural defense as Germany, 
with Austria bound to her. The fringe of neutral 
states, Holland and Denmark, protects her from 
attack by sea; the ridges of Alsace and Lorraine, 
accessible only through two or three gaps, which 
have been splendidly fortified, fend her from French 
invasion on the west; neutral Switzerland serves as 
a bulwark on the southwest; Austria lies between 
her and Italian or Slavic aggression on the south- 
east; and her eastern frontier, dotted with lakes 
and marshes, can be reached by Russian invaders 
only after they have crossed long stretches of 
country. Five German strategic railways can rush 
German troops by the hundred thousand to pro- 
tect that frontier at any point from the Russians 
against one railway available for carrying the Rus- 
sian armies westward. 

The girdle of neutral states which have clan- 
destinely furnished Germany with food and mili- 
tary staples, thereby prolonging the war by at least 
a year, should also be counted as an immense help 
to her. If those states had been integral parts of 
Germany that hefp could not have been rendered. 
Holland and Denmark would have been blockaded 
from the start. 



18 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

To the incalculable advantage due to geography 
must be added that which the Germans enjoyed 
by seizing Belgium and northeastern France — a 
seizure that involved the breaking by the Germans 
of solemn treaties, and pilloried them as outlaws 
from civilization. We can hardly contend that 
the surprise and deceit and the outrage on morals 
and humanity which were the elements of their 
western invasion can qualify them as supermen, 
unless we agree that the ruffian who bludgeons his 
victim from behind at night is a superman. 

Instead of calling supermen the German troops 
that were shuttled from east to west and from west 
to east in admirably appointed railway trains which 
took along with them artillery, food, and muni- 
tions, I should apply that term to Napoleon's 
Army of Italy, which marched on foot from Paris 
to Venice, ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-equipped — a mob, 
rather than an army — led by the "little puppet 
with dishevelled hair," and which wiped out three 
Austrian armies of much larger numbers, com- 
manded by Austria's most renowned generals. 
Similarly, was not Napoleon's assembling of the 
host with which he invaded Russia in 1812 a more 
astonishing task than that of mobilizing the Ger- 
mans in 1914, or of dispatching them in trains and 
motors and trucks and lorries to any desired point ? 



THE COLLAPSE OF SUPERMAN 19 

Napoleon's conscripts footed it from the Pyrenees, 
or from Finisterre, or from Calabria — to Vilna. 
As you are whirled at forty miles an hour across 
the American continent amid such modest luxury 
as a Pullman car affords, if you happen to think 
of the pioneers — thirsty, weary, footsore, shrouded 
in doubts — who first blazed the trail over the 
prairies and the Rockies to the Pacific, do you 
look down on them as mere men? Do you look 
up to yourself as a superman? 

With the best intentions in the world, I fear that 
we must dismiss the superman myth; or at least 
we must so revise our definition of superman that 
it will fit not those who can do things on a large 
scale because they have every contrivance at their 
disposal, but those who work marvels with a meagre 
outfit. Call Columbus, in his tiny Santa Maria 
of one hundred tons burthen, a superman if you 
will, but not the captain of a fifty-thousand-ton 
ocean liner. 

in 

In our glimpses at individual supermen and at 
concrete examples of their acts, perhaps we have 
not paid sufficient respect to the philosophic theory 
of the superman. The Germans assure us that 
in order to understand them, we must think Ger- 



20 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

manly. They see themselves as supermen — giants 
among dwarfs; but through some regrettable de- 
fect in our vision we see them as a race of great 
vigour and remarkable attainments in certain fields 
but not at all as demigods or even as Titans. The 
notion that here and there a superman is born — a 
person "beyond good and evil," who is expected 
not only not to curb his appetites and passions, 
but to prove his supermannishness by giving 
them a free rein — is a very inebriating notion if 
you are clever enough to persuade yourself and 
your group that you are one of these privileged 
creatures. 

The champions of the philosophy of supermania 
lean heavily on biology to support their creed. 
They have been misled by the phrase "the sur- 
vival of the fittest." You might infer, to hear 
them buzz, that only the fittest survive, or, to 
put it conversely, the fact that you survive is 
proof that you are the "fittest." Possibly a 
German complacently accepts this as a self- 
evident truth, but most of us non-Germans, even 
in our moods of most inflated self-esteem, must 
have our doubts as to our being the "fittest." 
Historians will recall many individuals, dead 
long since in body but living on in spirit, who 
were "fitter" than any among us to survive; 



THE COLLAPSE OF SUPERMAN 21 

nay, were there not many groups and even periods 
in the past which our "fittest" to-day cannot 
match? 

To interpret history in this mechanical fashion 
is as unsafe as it would be to try to climb the Mat- 
terhorn by practising the goosestep. If the "sur- 
vival of the fittest" meant what the German be- 
lievers in the phrase claim, then long before our 
geological era one species of mammals would have 
devoured all the others, and there would be only 
one triumphantly "fittest" kind of bird, of insect, 
and of fish; and long ago one breed of men would 
have swallowed up or exterminated all other 
breeds. Has this happened? Has a tribe of 
supermen arisen to dominate the world ? 

There have been conquering races — Assyrians, 
Egyptians, Macedonians, Romans, Teutonic Bar- 
barians (ancient and modern), Normans, Arabs, 
Turks, Spaniards, Anglo-Saxons, Frenchmen, Prus- 
sians — but it would be difficult to discover the 
quality common to them all which made each in 
turn "fittest." And if we discovered it we should 
learn only what made them military conquerors. 

But ability for military conquest is only one 
form of "fitness," and not the highest. Marcus 
Aurelius, for instance, would have gone down be- 
fore one of the brawny gladiators in the Colosseum; 



22 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

or, to make the point even clearer, say that he had 
succumbed to a lion in the arena. How would his 
fitness to survive compare with that of the gladia-. 
tor or the wild beast ? Over the earth the common 
fly — musca domestica — is more plentifully diffused 
than even the Germans; fear of lese-majeste re- 
strains us from making any inference as to their 
relative fitness. 

So there are, it seems, different kinds of fitness to 
survive; there are heights of excellence not dreamt 
of by the German General Staff; and there is human 
progress not to be measured or attained by the 
Prussian goose-step. "Fitness to survive?" After 
nearly eighteen hundred years the golden thoughts 
of Marcus Aurelius survive to-day in the hearts of 
thousands, but the names of the victorious gladia- 
tors in the Flavian Amphitheatre are forgotten, as 
those of Hindenburg, Moltke, and Mackensen will 
be when other standards of fitness than those of 
slaughter rule again. In days of Frightfulness like 
the present it gives solace to reflect that we can 
still hear Theocritus singing his idyls among the 
moonlit groves, while all the wicked tyrants of 
Syracuse associated with atrocious crimes are mere 
names or even less. And if to-day we had to 
choose between preserving the art, literature, 
and history of Athens and the Kultur of Germany 



THE COLLAPSE OF SUPERMAN 23 

under William II, can there be any doubt as to 
which we should jettison? In blotting out the 
Sieges Allee we should deprive posterity of many 
a smile, and in throwing over the records of 
Pan-Germanism and Supermania we should deprive 
it of proofs of otherwise incredible racial halluci- 
nation; but, after all, Treitschke, Nietzsche, and 
the Hohenzollern Kaiser are but for a generation, 
whereas Thucydides, Plato, and Pericles are for 
all time. 

May we not conclude, therefore, that when we 
subject the superman to the test of philosophy, or 
of biology, or of history, they refuse to recognize 
his claims? 

"We have seen you before," they say: "we have 
watched your recurrent appearance in human 
affairs ever since the time when man, ceasing to be 
a quadruped, stood up on his hind feet. We 
strongly suspect, if you will permit us to say so, 
that you are really a survival of the quadruped, 
or Inframan, in the human race. We admire your 
adroitness in palming off infra as super, but really 
who are the people whom you have fooled in this 
way? Do they stand on their heads, or is their 
eyesight twisted, or do they dwell in asylums 
for the insane, or are they still quadrupeds?" 

They are none of these; they are Germans. 



24 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

IV 

At the outset of our philosophic inquiry a 
chilling question confronts us: How can we know 
that the Germans are supermen ? If the attributes 
of the superman are above those of mere man, 
what faculty has mere man by which to recognize 
them? For the superman is not simply a being 
in whom the talents of mere man are magnified 
many times — he is a higher creation. We can 
know Caesar, Socrates, Napoleon, Emerson, be- 
cause they, too, were men; but how can we know 
the superman any more than the kitten which 
chases its tail on the floor beside me knows my 
nature or my thoughts ? 

Perhaps our only way is to assume that the 
superman belongs to our genus and to study him 
experimentally as we would any other strange 
creature. So we shall be able to value him in 
human terms, which may or may not coincide 
with the value he has set upon himself. 

I remarked just now that he does not appear 
to have excelled even in science in those large dis- 
coveries, the product of the creative imagination, 
which we associate with superior minds. The 
steamboat was invented by Fulton, an American; 
the locomotive, applied to the railroad, by Stephen- 



THE COLLAPSE OF SUPERMAN 25 

son, an Englishman; the telegraph, by Morse, an 
American; wireless telegraphy, by Marconi, an 
Italian with an Irish mother; the telephone, by 
Bell, an American; and when we come to the field 
of war implements what surprise is this? Not 
German supermen, but mere men of other races 
dreamed, devised, and designed them. An Amer- 
ican named Holland put the first submarine into 
the water; he, too, invented the submarine tor- 
pedo; Maxim, another American, invented the 
machine gun; two American brothers, the Wrights, 
set flying the first practical airplanes; Bessemer, an 
Englishman, discovered the process for making 
steel, without which Krupp guns, large or small, 
would not have existed; and nearly a century and a 
half ago a Frenchman, Montgolfier, invented the 
balloon, the principle of which underlies the 
Zeppelin, the dirigible, and all similar modern 
varieties. Even in the art of war itself, it 
was not the Germans who introduced trench 
warfare. 

Not a German in all this list. The supermen 
turn out to be amazingly lavish borrowers of other 
men's ideas, prolific adapters, untiring imitators. 
Among men it is the discoverer — and not those 
who follow him or perhaps improve upon him — 
that is rated highest. Can the ranking be reversed 



26 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

among supermen? Among them do the second- 
rates stand higher than the first ? 

If we leave the sphere of invention and enter 
that of basic principles, we find that no German, 
but a modest Englishman, Charles Darwin, an- 
nounced the idea which has been the keynote of 
modern thought and of modern science. Louis 
Pasteur, a modest Frenchman, demonstrated the 
true method of biology; Michael Faraday, a modest 
Englishman, laid down the laws which have guided 
all subsequent students and appliers of electricity; 
Joseph Lister, another modest Englishman, con- 
ferred upon this suffering world the boon of anti- 
sepsis. 

Our search for indisputable proof that Germans 
have been supermen in these many fields seems 
barren. Can they have been mistaken? Does 
not the giant know the length of his own belt? 
Who are we to doubt or to deny? Is it not pre- 
sumptuous in moles to question the magnitude of 
elephants? In fairness we must judge the Ger- 
mans by their achievements in the activity which 
they pronounce supreme. That activity is war, 
the sum and crown of all their ideals and talents. 
I have hinted, perhaps too audaciously, that in the 
actual war the Germans have revealed none of 
those transcendent qualities that must be, of 



THE COLLAPSE OF SUPERMAN 27 

course, the martial heritage of supermen. Let us 
glance once more at this matter, which is evidently 
the final test for our poor human intelligence of the 
superman's claims. 

We must never forget that when the Kaiser 
forced his atrocious war upon the world in August, 
1914, he commanded the most stupendous army 
the world had ever seen; in equipment, in drill, in 
the speed of its mobilization, it had no rivals. It 
swept on, apparently irresistible, for thirty-six 
days; then Manoury found the crevice in the 
German giant's armour, plunged his sword into it, 
and the monster reeled backward. Four days 
later it was in full retreat. This is puzzling to the 
plain common-sense man. It surprised even the 
Germans themselves. In the happy days of Bour- 
bon despotism in the Two Sicilies, the soldiers were 
given amulets, which, they were assured, would 
render them invulnerable to the bullets of their 
enemies. What must a Bourbon soldier have 
thought when he was brought to the ground by a 
ball that smashed his thigh? The Kaiser gave 
his German soldiers similar amulets — he told 
them that they were supermen and invincible. 
When they were beaten at the Marne and only by 
their superior running ability succeeded in reaching 
the Aisne in time to dig themselves in before their 



28 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

pursuers came up with them, were they troubled by 
doubts as to the validity of their amulets ? Being 
Germans, they probably indulged in no surmises, 
for the German soldier is trained not to think. 

But a few weeks later the Kaiser, having been 
baffled at the Marne, decided to make a drive on 
Calais. What could hinder him? There were a 
hundred thousand British troops round Ypres, 
but the Kaiser had already in a speech sneered 
away General French's "contemptible little army." 
The Kaiser had been the master strategist and 
victor in the German grand manoeuvres for 
twenty-five years, and his verdict on military qual- 
ities must therefore be final. So he sent half a 
million of his best troops on their promenade to 
Calais; but at Ypres the "Contemptibles" — who 
wear that as a name of honour forever — stood 
their ground; they had only rifles and small field 
pieces to oppose the heavy artillery and the ma- 
chine guns of the enemy; they were mostly unused 
to European warfare fighting against the best 
regiments of Germany; they were only Britishers 
while their foes were Germans. And yet the " Con- 
temptibles" held fast; many of them died with a 
cheer, but they held fast. The flower of the Kai- 
ser's army never got beyond Ypres, either then or 
in the three years that have followed. 



THE COLLAPSE OF SUPERMAN. 29 

Here is another puzzle for the plain," common- 
sense mere man. If one Britisher can check and 
virtually defeat five Germans, which is the real 
superman? Let us pray to be "Contemptibles," 
and let us not begrudge the beaten supermen their 
Iron Crosses. 

One form — is it not the most loathsome? — of 
German mendacity and deceit, is the bribery by 
the Germans of the armies of their enemies. 
Thus the superman did not overcome the Russians 
by superior military skill and bravery, but by 
corrupting those Russians — from the dweller in 
the Imperial Palace to generals, colonels, and mere 
captains — who had charge of supplying the Rus- 
sian armies with food, munition, and clothing, or 
who led the troops. Russia was sold out by 
traitors: the buyers were the Germans. So, too, 
the regiments which started the Italian avalanche 
of panic at Plezzo had previously been stroked by 
German agents. Here again is a strange paradox. 
The supermen, who preach that war is the highest 
business of life — the pleasure which they chiefly 
yearn to enjoy — instead of indulging themselves 
to the full when they can, buy off, paralyze with 
bribes, the foes who should fight them. What 
can this be? Kultur ? Stonewall Jackson did 
not win Chnncellorsville or Grant take Vicksburg 



3 o VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

by bribery. But then, they were not supermen, 
they were not Germans; they were honest, honour- 
able, and chivalrous soldiers, and so were their 
adversaries. 



Except for the way in which the Germans car- 
ried out Frightfulness after the war began, nothing 
so startled the world as their inability to compre- 
hend the point of view of other nations. They 
were themselves astonished that anybody should 
criticize their campaign of rape, arson, and murder 
in Belgium and France or their disregard of sol- 
emn compacts. "Is not war war?" they asked. 
"Is a treaty more than a scrap of paper?" To 
them it was inconceivable that Belgium should 
hold her honour dearer than her safety — that Eng- 
land should stand by her pledges — that France 
should be moved by an instinct deeper than that of 
self-preservation. The Germans had been so long 
in the habit of assuming that the earth revolved on 
a German pivot that they took it for granted that 
all the other Powers would accept without demur 
the plea of "German necessity." 

In ordinary life this trait is common enough; 
but instead of reverently kneeling to those who 
are afflicted by it we pity tlrem, recommend seda- 



THE COLLAPSE OF SUPERMAN 31 

tives or a bag of ice at the base of the brain, and 
meditation on the wisdom of humility. If now 
we are to believe that the swelled head is the sign 
of the German superman, shall we not ask what it 
profits him? If the state of being a superman de- 
prives him of the power to understand the thoughts 
and motives of mere men, is he not to be pitied? 
For he lies at the mercy of insignificant creatures, 
who may in a week upset the plans he has been 
maturing for forty years. Who would wish to be 
a superman on those terms? An insignificant 
mere man can fathom the German's psychology 
while the German is as nonplussed as a South 
Sea Islander before an English Bible. 

I have heard it argued that though we must deny 
to the Germans their claim, on military grounds, 
of being supreme— for measuring their performance 
in relation to their resources they have fallen far 
short of even a mere man like Napoleon, not to 
mention such ancients as Alexander and Hannibal 
— yet in mendacity and deceit they have beaten 
the world's record. Their spies burrow in all 
lands; their cunning corrodes every class of society; 
they have so far forgotten what truth is that they 
cannot fabricate a lie that looks enough like truth 
to be effective. 

Frankly, the evidence is in their favour, for they 



32 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

have brought mendacity to a degree of perfection 
that Metternich or Gortchakoff or Frederick the 
Great himself would have envied. We must go 
back to the Renaissance — to the consummate 
Papal masters of craft, to Sixtus IV or to Alexander 
VI, let us say — to find their equals. 

And yet, having admitted this, having accepted 
the claim that they have spread their spider's web 
from Pole to Pole, we ought to point out in the 
name of truth — and truth must be heard even when 
lies are in question — that the most extraordinary 
aptitude for cunning and mendacity would not 
entitle its possessor to pass for a superman. Lies 
of all kinds are emitted like counterfeit money by 
the lower grade of mere men, and by degener- 
ates, savages, and children. To base the German 
claim to supermania on a lie, therefore, may seem 
to the heartless singularly appropriate; but it 
cannot be established. No one argues that the 
Renaissance delinquents were supermen. Or, if 
we look simply at the practical side, the fact 
that an American detective served Count Bern- 
storff, the German Ambassador, as valet for twenty 
months, must always dispose of the German super- 
man's claims to supremacy even in cunning. 

The superman, as a member of a superpeople 
which, according to its prophets, must choose 



THE COLLAPSE OF SUPERMAN 33 

between world power and downfall, deserves" our 
heartiest sympathy. If you, reader, were to be 
suddenly obsessed by the idea that you must 
go out and whip everybody you met in the street 
or be whipped and cast on to the dump, would not 
you be an object of pity? Supermania seems so 
obsolete that it requires almost as great an effort 
of the imagination to believe that it has come to 
life again as that we are in danger of the resurrec- 
tion of the Harpies. 

In an insane asylum a patient had the delusion 
that he was Julius Caesar, and his keepers humoured 
him — and all went well. After a while another 
patient came who imagined himself Charlemagne. 
He began to rattle the imaginary scabbard of an 
imaginary sword and to strut imperially; and the 
keepers humoured him, too — and all went well. 
That is the common-sense way in which, outside 
of Germany, they treat victims of supermania. 
Beyond the Rhine, however, they prefer a different 
regime. They say, "Hail Caesar!" or "Hoch! 
Hoch! Charlemagne!" and they give him a real 
sword in a real scabbard, and obsequiously kiss 
the hem of his garment; and so they confirm his de- 
lusion in him. But presently the delusion reacts 
on themselves. 

Granted that ambition is rooted very deep in 



34 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

the human heart, its gratification in the form of 
dominating a conquered people has long since lost 
savour for civilized men and women. To gloat 
over the fact that, thanks to your superior force 
you can compel others to do your bidding against 
their will, allies you with the earlier types of bar- 
barians who took delight in making slaves of their 
men, captives and concubines of the women. That 
is the attitude bred by despotism. Some of us 
have been so genuinely imbued with democracy 
that we feel not merely aversion but shame at 
the thought of compulsion derived by brute force, 
and we felt not elation but repugnance when, 
through a cruel stroke of fortune, several million 
Filipinos became our "subjects." Weaklings that 
we are, we are unworthy to catch that form of 
Supermania Teutonic a furibunda. 

With all its defects, history must at least be 
credited with one compensating virtue — it shows 
us that there is nothing new under the sun. Amid 
great calamities or horrors or despair wise Clio 
whispers: "This has happened before; worse than 
this have I seen; this, too, shall pass away." 

History is not a prophet, but only recently she 
said: "The struggle between Right and Might is 
eternal. A century and more ago the gospel of 
the rights of man, of democracy, was embodied in 



THE COLLAPSE OF SUPERMAN 35 

French armies which marched under the command 
of Napoleon from end to end of Europe, shaking 
down thrones and institutions. The personal 
ambition of Napoleon strove to use this earth- 
shaking force for his selfish ends. Then Europe 
rose and destroyed him, but Democracy went 
marching on." 

VI 

Lovers of fact cannot fail to be grateful to the 
Germans, the self-announced supermen, for their 
complete demonstration that there are no super- 
men. Even over here in America it was a little 
annoying to harbour the suspicion that possibly 
the German professor, or the editor of the German 
newspaper, or the fellow who blew up factories 
and wrecked trains and hid bombs in passenger 
steamers, being German, might be a superman. 
To Yankee eyes the professor was simply a sneak, 
oily and eely; the editor, one of the brood that 
Bismarck called "reptile"; the bomber, a low 
villain in whom great cowardice did not preclude 
great crime. Our Yankee eyes have been justi- 
fied by the pricking of the superman bubble. 
The Kaiser's workers here are no more and no 
less than our Yankee eyes have seen them to be — 
curious types of inframtn whose portraits, under 



36 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

other names, adorn the Rogues' Galleries, and 
whose peculiar activities are the study of the 
criminal pathologists of many nations. Even 
were the Germans to win the war the fact would 
remain that they are not supermen. The quali- 
ties they have tried to win by link them with Cali- 
ban — not with the angels. 

The collapse of the superman myth will bring 
relief, not only to those who accepted it on too 
slight warrant and feared that the German super- 
men would overrun the world and persecute and 
cretinize its inhabitants, but it will also relieve 
those who saw that the superman creed, if true, 
meant the negation of whatever moral and spiritual 
ideals mankind has laid hold of in the course of 
its painful ascent from savagery. 

To some of us it seemed rather late in the day 
for any of our contemporaries to puff out their 
chests and say: "Behold, we are the Chosen Peo- 
ple!" And when they flaunted before our skep- 
tical gaze their affidavit to that effect — signed 
by Professor Haeckel, and Professor Harnack, and 
the Professor of Entomology This and the Pro- 
fessor of Etymology That, and all the other ninety- 
three incarnations of German veracity, and boot- 
licking — instead of being convinced, our irreverent 
minds began to wonder whether Haeckel, Harnack, 



THE COLLAPSE OF SUPERMAN 37 

and the rest had been cultivating their special 
fields of science with the same disregard of fact 
that they displayed in the easily verifiable theory 
of the Superman. 

The doctrine of the Chosen People came at an 
early stage of development. Readers of the Old 
Testament find it tenaciously held by some of 
the ancient Hebrew tribes in Syria. For it to 
reappear three thousand years later among the 
Germans, whose Hohenzollern masters despised 
Jewry and Jews except when they could borrow 
money from them or use them as spies, seemed a 
comical reversion to an outworn primitive concept. 
Some of its supporters disguised it a little by cloth- 
ing it in modern scientific phrase. We have heard 
their assertions about the " survival of the fittest. " 
Others tell us that there have been only two "male" 
races — the Roman and the German. The Romans 
subdued all the "female" races of their epoch; 
the German mission is to bring all the "female" 
races of our time under their subjection. A de- 
lightful example of unconscious humour! Solo- 
mon, the sovereign of the Chosen People in 990 
b. c, possessed a thousand flesh-and-blood fe- 
males; William II, sovereign of the German chosen 
people in 1914 a. d., aspired to possess as many 
"female" races. So would the intimations of 



38 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

Holy Scripture be fulfilled by the establishment of 
a political world-harem at Berlin. 

The cult of the superman could flourish only in a 
time and among a people given over to material- 
ism. The astonishing feats of the Germans were 
the product, as we saw, not of unusual genius — 
far less of any superhuman faculty — but of a 
nation whose men, women, and children, old and 
young, had been reduced to so complete a state of 
mechanical obedience that they could be directed 
by a single will just as every cog, wheel, belt, and 
spindle of a factory is controlled by the engin- 
eer who turns the power on or off. You may mar- 
vel, if you will, at the success that those have had 
whose interest it was to bring seventy million 
human beings to the state of machines; but when 
you look abroad over nature or over history you 
will come upon so many examples of docility and 
imitation that you will perceive that these quali- 
ties belong to a lower rather than to a higher order 
of intelligence. Watch a flock of sheep scamper- 
ing after their bellwether, or a procession of cater- 
pillars crawling in an unbroken line, one behind 
the other, wherever the leader takes them. How 
obedient they are! How German! Remember 
such vast collective enterprises as the Crusades, 
in which not merely one people but all the coun- 



THE COLLAPSE OF SUPERMAN 39 

tries of Christendom — even tens of thousands of 
little children, so truly childish is the German 
frame of mind — were impelled by the same motive; 
remember with what efficiency the Inquisition did 
its work in Europe and America, and at its height 
yielded nothing in thoroughness and in black re- 
sults to the highest Prussian standard. The thing 
itself is old; only this recent manifestation and the 
names are new. 

On the teachability of the human biped his prog- 
ress, of course, depends. Civilization inheres in 
the doctrines he is taught and in the spirit in which 
he uses them — the spirit: for the wisest and best 
men have discerned in man something invisible, 
intangible, immaterial, but most real, to which 
they give this name. There are two sorts of edu- 
cation: The one endeavours to liberate the spirit; 
the other to train those faculties which spring 
from the physical nature of man. The finished 
product of the former education is an individual 
who thinks for himself and wills for himself — and 
recognizes his moral responsibility; that of the 
latter is a machine who receives his thoughts from 
outside and whose will and acts are controlled by a 
master. 

Submissiveness, obedience, docility, and all 
other forms of protective coloration from fear, date 



4 o VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

from primitive times, when they were the effects 
produced by superior brute force on the weak. 
Later, cunning in various guises managed to share 
the mastery with force. In one way or another 
the weak were controlled through their fears; and, 
however we disguise it, the same is true to-day. 

But certain aspirations are almost as instinc- 
tive as fears, and it is by playing on these aspira- 
tions that the greatest workers of iniquity — ambi- 
tious war lords and religious fanatics — have dis- 
sembled their purposes from the multitudes whom 
they employed to do them. Patriotism and re- 
ligion are the commonest, the most effective of 
these deceptions. Either of them has the power, 
like a terrible drug, to deprive its victim of his 
normal human character. How else explain the 
pious edification with which crowds of the " faith- 
ful" witnessed the tortures and slaying of heretics; 
or the frenzied exultation of the spectators of the 
orgies of the French Revolution — worshippers not 
of Saint-Dominic but of Saint-Guillotine — for 
whose patriotic edification the heads could not 
drop fast enough into the blood-soaked sawdust? 
An unlimited capacity for hero-worship — which, 
like love, is blind — shows itself early in the devel- 
opment of the human race, and has been almost 
as great a source of evil as of good. If you turn 



THE COLLAPSE OF SUPERMAN 41 

your hero-worship inward to yourself the efforts 
of all the angels cannot save you from falling, like 
the Germans, into the superman delusion. 

To make men individuals and not mechanical 
atoms of a mass; to call out the spirit in them in- 
stead of reducing them to machines — that is the 
ideal which will forever overcome the German ideal 
of the Chosen People composed of supermen, who, 
when scrutinized, turn out to be parts of a gigantic 
mechanism. I repeat, man is compounded of 
matter and of spirit, and since his creation there 
has been a perpetual conflict between the two. 
For ages together matter seems to dominate; and 
then spirit breaks through, frees itself, and regen- 
erates the world. Under the guise of the super- 
man, matter has waged its latest war for empire, 
and it has been beaten. 

Should we not be grateful to the Germans who 
have organized matter into the most remarkable 
machine man has ever contrived — a machine in 
which the human and the material parts are indis- 
tinguishable; a machine which the oil of Kaiser- 
worship lubricates and for which the fuel of pa- 
triotism supplies the power; a machine which 
represents the ultimate attainment of science? 
Having examined the prodigy can we not refresh 
ourselves with the thought that this is the best 



42 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

and the worst that matter, whose spokesman is 
German science, can do? It cost Europe more 
lives than the present atrocious war will take, 
to get rid of the diabolical belief in witches. Shall 
we not say that that riddance was worth the price ? 
Will not posterity declare that the exploding of the 
superman delusion, and of the giving over of the 
civilized world to German domination which that 
delusion threatened, was also worth the price? 

More than thirty-five centuries ago the race 
which then inhabited the Plain of Shinar — the 
Prussians of those times and perhaps their fore- 
runners — looking up at the sun and stars and more 
conversant with material than with spiritual laws, 
thought that they could build them a tower by 
which they could mount to those celestial regions 
and possess them. But the Lord, looking down 
upon their city and their tower, said: "Behold, the 
people is one, and they have all one language; and 
this they begin to do: and now nothing will be 
restrained from them which they have imagined 
to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound 
their language, that they may not understand one 
another's speech. So the Lord scattered them 
abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: 
and they left off to build the city." The name of 
that tower was Babel, and never since that time 



THE COLLAPSE OF SUPERMAN 43 

has the Lord given his approval to supermen who 
would conquer the earth in the Prussian spirit. 
The one language which will unite all the races is 
not the language of Frightfulness — the utterance of 
physical force and of science — but the language of 
Love, through which the souls of men speak. 

To us to-day who have never had any doubts 
as to the relative position of matter and spirit, 
and who have never shared the folly of thinking 
that we or any other people are supermen, the price 
of the Atrocious War is staggering. But the great 
gods are infinite, and we can infer the importance 
they attach to this struggle by the magnitude of 
the human sacrifice they have allowed. 

October, 1917. 



II 

AMERICA'S INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 1 

EMERSON concludes his essay on "Illusions" 
by a noble passage in which he describes how 
a youth, entering upon life, his soul fired by ideals, 
sees the gods in the firmament, every god sitting 
in his sphere. "The young mortal enters the hall 
of the firmament; there is he alone with them alone, 
they pouring on him benedictions and gifts, and 
beckoning him up to their thrones. On the in- 
stant, and incessantly, fall snow-storms of illusions. 
He fancies himself in a vast crowd which sways 
this way and that, and whose movement and doings 
he must obey; he fancies himself poor, orphaned, 
insignificant. The mad crowd drives him hither 
and thither, now furiously commanding this thing 
to be done, now that. What is he that he should 
resist their will, and think or act for himself! 
Every moment new changes and new showers of 
deceptions to baffle and distract him. And when, 
by and by, for an instant, the air clears and the 

x ln January, 1917, the National Security League held a Congress of Con- 
structive Patriotism in Washington. By invitation, I delivered this address 
on January 25, 1917. 

44 



INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 45 

clouds lift a little, there are the gods still sitting 
around him on their thrones — alone with him 
alone." 

During the calamity of this Atrocious War how 
many of us, like the youth, have been blinded by a 
storm of doubts and of horrors! We had lived 
so long in a world where we took it for granted 
that every person in Christendom agreed with 
every other in holding a few principles of honour, 
humanity, and justice, that we were amazed when 
Germany announced that its standard was the 
standard of Attila, that Moloch was its god and 
Frightfulness its method. Many souls anxiously 
asked themselves whether this new invasion of 
the Huns might not result in the destruction of 
our civilization, which we have drawn from the 
best of Judea, and Greece, from Rome, Italy, 
France, Holland, and England, and from those 
earlier Germans, who, like Goethe, repudiated 
the barbarian instincts of the Prussians. Progress 
does not advance at a uniform rate. Nations and 
systems go out, and nothing replaces them. Just 
as the highly cultivated Saracens went down before 
the crude and ruthless Spaniards, might it not be 
that our civilized nations must succumb before the 
new Barbarians, masters of every material device 
for waging war? Would another Dark Age, such 



46 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

as that which prevailed in Europe from the fourth 
century to the twelfth, overshadow the world? 
What has happened once, may happen again. 

Even as we whisper this doubt, we see through 
the battle smoke which palls the firmament a rift, 
and there sit the great gods as of old from everlast- 
ing. There are Justice, Honour, and Mercy; and 
there is the Avenger, who exacts retribution in 
strange and terrible ways. Their august faces 
look pityingly upon us, that we should have so 
little trust in spiritual reality as to believe that 
they could be destroyed by any material agency 
or by any change in geographical frontiers. 

This is a moral world. Autocrats may tear up 
the scrap of paper on which the moral law is writ- 
ten; the paper goes, but the law remains unscathed. 
So, when I seek a cornerstone on which our inter- 
national relations should rest, I find nothing more 
solid, nothing more durable than this — "Right- 
eousness exalteth a nation." Never in history has 
it been as necessary as it is now to repeat and still 
to repeat this truth; for never before have the 
American people been seduced to believe that 
righteousness does not matter, that comfort and 
money-making, luxury and the means to evade 
moral obligations, are the proofs of national 
prosperity. For nations, as for men, the moral 



INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 47 

consideration — character — is fundamental. Woe 
unto the leaders of a people who beguile them 
into preferring any material or any other gain 
to this. 

In what I have to say, I assume this to be essen- 
tial, for I cannot conceive that the United States 
will long count in international diplomacy, unless 
they recover the moral prestige which politicians 
have frittered away through cowardice, self-seeking, 
or incompetence. Numbers will avail us nothing. 
The larger the herd of sheep, the happier the pack 
of wolves. With an army of 3,200 men, of whom 
only 1,100 were Europeans, Clive defeated 68,000 
native Bengalese at Plassy — Plassy, that stu- 
pendous battle which gave England the Indian 
Empire. So Japan, standing relatively as one to 
ten with China, smote China helpless. Age after 
age, history shows similar examples of the destruc- 
tion of populous, enervated nations, by the few 
sturdy and strong. 

Wealth will not help us ! On the contrary, every 
additional dollar is an added incentive for the 
rapacity of predatory powers. Wealth is timid. 
Wealth has a dulled sense of honour. Wealth, 
like the goose that laid the golden egg, asks only 
to be left undisturbed on her nest. But the world 
is full of gunners eager for that kind of game. 



48 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

What was once a matter of lifting cattle, or a 
border foray, has now become the chief business of 
nations which proclaim themselves the final em- 
bodiment of human superiority. They lay their 
plans forty years ahead. They establish a re- 
ligion to sanctify their project. They bend sci- 
ence and invention, industry and education to 
make everything ready. They rename their an- 
cient trade of highway robbery "patriotism." 
None but a fool can suppose that they will covet 
our wealth the less because it is enormous, or 
respect it the more because it is unprotected. 

Others here will speak for military and naval 
preparation; I urge a need that precedes that — 
the need of national moral regeneration. Until 
we recover our national self-respect, until we 
realize that as Americans we have many sacred 
ideals which it is our duty to fight for and to die 
for, we shall never rank again among the great 
nations of the world. I make no specious claim to 
neutrality. Only a moral eunuch could be neutral 
in the sense implied by the malefic dictum of the 
President of the United States. I deny that there 
is no distinction between the ravisher and his vic- 
tim; between Germany, brutalized by the creed of 
Moloch, and France heroically defending herself 
against the Teuton monster. I deny that a con- 



INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 49 

flict in which civilization is at stake does not con- 
cern Americans. If Freedom, if Pity, if Human- 
ity do not concern us, what does? Perhaps some 
future apologist will try to excuse these and similar 
doctrines, which comprise the Wilson Negations, 
on the ground that Mr. Wilson was misunderstood. 
I simply state the fact, without comment, that 
his words did more than any other single cause to 
change American public opinion. 

It is largely because of these Wilsonian Nega- 
tions of our fundamental beliefs that we are met 
in this Congress; for these negations have sifted 
like a subtle poison into the hearts of our country- 
men — distorting the vision in some, destroying 
in others the power to distinguish between good 
and evil, causing many to look unmoved on un- 
speakable cruelties, and creating in most an ig- 
noble desire not to be interrupted in their money- 
making and their pleasures. 

The first step we must take in every field we 
have marked out for our work will be to abolish 
the evil growths which have sprung up from such 
seeds. We must repair the corroded moral fibre of 
the nation; we must restore patriotism; we must 
quicken our sense of moral obligation toward all 
the world; we must put an end forever to the 
damning implication that American men are the 



50 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

only men on earth from whom manliness is neither 
expected nor required. 

I pass to more specific concerns. 

First, there is what I may call the technique of 
diplomacy. This can be executed only by trained 
experts — yet trained experts are almost as rare as 
nightingales in the State Department. Perhaps 
it is unavoidable that we should elect our presi- 
dents without reference to their qualification in 
international affairs; but there has grown up the 
indefensible custom by which the President ap- 
points as Secretary of State his chief competitor 1 
for the nomination. He might with equal sense 
appoint the man from whom he had just won a golf 
match, or the first red-haired stranger he met on 
Pennsylvania Avenue. To describe such a custom 
is to condemn it. Nor need I cite here the humilia- 
tions which it has recently brought upon us. 

Another requisite for the proper conduct of 
diplomacy is reticence, reserve. Instead of this, 
garrulousness is the fashion. Notes bulging with 
literary style are indited and hurried to the press, 
almost before the persons to whom they were ad- 
dressed can have received them. The public talks 
for a day or two about the writer's skill in trolling 
phrases, in balancing clause with clause, in in- 

1 William Jennings Bryan. 



INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 51 

terspersing runs and cadences, in sending out ven- 
erable platitudes decked with new ribbon. But 
nothing happens, and after a while there follows 
another note, which may serve like its predecessor 
as a model to students of English composition. 

This is a dangerous breach of diplomatic tech- 
nique. If you are conducting an important business 
transaction, you do not rush into print about it 
before it is concluded. Directors do not choose a 
man to be president of a great corporation because 
he excels as an essayist. The great traditions 
of our diplomacy do not countenance this. The 
mightiest diplomatic message ever sent by an 
American took less than two lines. Here they 
are, as written on September 5, 1863, by Charles 
Francis Adams, our Minister in London, to Lord 
John Russell, the British Foreign Secretary: "It 
would be superfluous in me to point out to your 
Lordship that this is war." Earl Russell under- 
stood. He and Adams both knew the language 
which men use when they mean what they say and 
are not merely writing notes. 

It is time that the State Department and the 
White House returned to practise diplomacy ac- 
cording to our great traditions. 

Coming next to the substance of our foreign 
relations, we all recognize that the Atrocious War 



52 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

has taught everybody, what has been evident to a 
few for some time past, that isolation no longer 
exists for us. In December, 1895, when President 
Cleveland sent his brusque message to England on 
the Venezuela Boundary, we literally broke into 
the arena of world politics. We then advanced 
into the Pacific by annexing the Hawaiian Islands; 
and became involved in the Asiatic tangle by taking 
the Philippines. We planted ourselves in the 
West Indies at Puerto Rico, and when we built 
the Panama Canal, we made ourselves, willy-nilly, 
warders of the American hemisphere. 

I am not discussing the wisdom of these moves; 
nor of the Monroe Doctrine which, since Napoleon 
Ill's forced withdrawal from Mexico in 1867, had 
played little part in the popular imagination until 
Cleveland's Venezuela Message. Then the Doc- 
trine took on a new edge, and European Powers 
rightly regarded it as a challenge, if not as a men- 
ace. Few of them probably dreamed of establish- 
ing new dominions on this side of the Atlantic, but 
the mere fact of a prohibition which curtails their 
future acts is a grievance. One Power, however, 
was just beginning to intoxicate itself with visions 
of a transoceanic empire: Germany saw in Brazil 
the richest region in the world still unexploited 
by any of the great countries. Brazil could 



INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 53 

house the entire population of the Fatherland, and 
still have room for more. But the Monroe Doc- 
trine declared that Germany should not control 
Brazil. During several years, Emperor William II 
strove, by secret intrigue or by open deeds, to dis- 
cover whether the United States would defend the 
Doctrine, and finally, when in 1902 President 
Roosevelt informed him that he must consent within 
forty-eight hours to arbitrate the Venezuela 
difficulty or run the risk of war, the Kaiser un- 
derstood that at least that American Administra- 
tion was in earnest. He arbitrated. 

Thus the Monroe Doctrine — which binds us to 
prevent foreign Powers from establishing a new 
dominion in either America — and our own acquisi- 
tion of territory overseas, have destroyed our iso- 
lation — that fact on which much of our earlier 
policy was based. And now invention, which 
makes it possible for a European enemy to attack 
us by submarine or by aircraft, deprives us also of 
the isolation which geographical remoteness gave. 

Before we can pursue a consistent and continu- 
ous foreign policy, therefore, we shall need to 
decide whether to cling to the Monroe Doctrine, 
or to let it lapse. How can we enter into any 
European or Asiatic combination which would 
entitle us to meddle in the affairs of Europe or 



54 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

Asia, so long as we refuse to allow foreign nations 
to interfere, even in matters which chiefly concern 
themselves, with any American country? Reci- 
procity is so obviously the principle which should 
govern civilized intercourse, that we cannot go on 
claiming universal privileges and conceding none. 
When the war ends we shall be an almost defense- 
less nation in a world every one of whose able- 
bodied men is a soldier — a world little inclined to 
respect a people who wince at the thought of suf- 
fering or sacrifice. It may be then that one foreign 
nation, or several, may infringe on our Monroe 
Doctrine and may say, if we remonstrate: "Well, 
what are you going to do about it?" What 
should we reply? What could we do about it? 
No foreign policy is stronger than the physical 
force it can command to back it up, in case it is 
put to the test of war. 

Thanks to the European complications during 
the past twenty years — thanks also to the protec- 
tion of the British fleet — we could flaunt our de- 
fiance with slight danger of being called to defend 
it; but, as there is little likelihood that this immun- 
ity will serve us much longer, we must determine, 
with all the soberness, foresight, and judgment 
we possess, how much, if any, of the Monroe Doc- 
trine we will stand by. 



INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 55 

Interlocked with this, is the question of our 
joining in any league to enforce peace after the 
present war — a project which, however we may 
sympathize with it, presents many diplomatic 
difficulties. There is also the further disadvantage, 
so far as we are concerned, that at present our 
ability to enforce anything is so puny, that we 
should be the laughing-stock in any league the 
other members of which would have from ten to 
fifty times our quota. Switzerland to-day can 
mobilize half a million men; while the United States 
has not fifty thousand of similar quality. 

A third matter is involved in the settlement of 
these two — a tradition older than the Monroe 
Doctrine, and, owing to its venerable origin, not 
lightly to be abandoned. In his Farewell Address, 
written in 1796, Washington warned his country- 
men: "'Tis our true policy to steer clear of per- 
manent alliances, with any portion of the foreign 
world." For 120 years this warning has been the 
guiding principle of our statesmen, irrespective of 
party; and yet as Mr. Beck has recently urged 
with characteristic clearness, the time has come 
when we must consider whether our foreign policy 
ought longer to be bound by it. 

A maxim which, having outlived the conditions 
to which it originally applied, if preserved as a 



56 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

fetish may do much harm; for the effort to perpetu- 
ate the obsolete phrases and ideas of creeds and 
constitutions blocks the spread of living truth; and 
unless truth be alive, what is it ? Now any one 
who reads Washington's Farewell Address atten- 
tively must perceive that it consists of certain 
broad restatements of the eighteenth-century polit- 
ical wisdom and of certain specific recommenda- 
tions. He introduces his advice in regard to "per- 
manent alliances," for instance, by the questions: 
"Why forego the advantage of so peculiar a situa- 
tion? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign 
ground?" When we inquire what he meant by 
the "peculiar situation" which was so advan- 
tageous to us, we find, of course, that he meant our 
isolation. It took from four to six weeks then for a 
ship to cross the Atlantic. Even in Europe the 
communications were so slow, and so often inter- 
rupted, that it required the better part of a month 
for news to pass between London and Vienna or 
Berlin and Madrid. How difficult, therefore, 
must it have been for the United States to follow 
the shifting combinations of war or diplomacy 
from so great a distance ! 

Washington had also another reason for bidding 
his countrymen not to entangle themselves in the 
European quarrels. He knew that the great task 



INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 57 

for the young American Republic was to develop 
freely according to its own nature — to become 
thoroughly American and thoroughly Republican, 
unvitiated by foreign interests or examples. 

To-day the argument against permanent alli- 
ances, so far as it is based on geographical isola- 
tion, has disappeared. We could not isolate our- 
selves if we tried. The second argument has like- 
wise so changed as to be no longer valid. We do 
not need to go abroad, to run the risk of being 
vitiated by contact with foreigners and their ideals; 
for we have adopted nearly twenty-five million 
foreigners since i860. Accordingly, the problem 
is already internal, and not merely external. 

I do not believe, therefore, that, if Washington 
were alive, he would continue to insist on our ob- 
serving his warning against alliances. Like other 
consummate statesmen he was an opportunist. 
He held certain moral doctrines from which nothing 
could swerve him; he cherished ideals which he 
always strove to realize; but in dealing with each 
present fact, he was a stern realist, unbefogged by 
theory and unscared by custom. And just as he 
would never have prepared an outfit of pontoon 
bridges to cross a river dry enough to be forded, so he 
would not now ground the international policy of the 
United States on an isolation which does not exist. 



58 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

While it seems likely that further appeal to 
Washington's judgment in this matter may soon 
cease, his warning against the concrete dangers 
of a foreign alliance cannot grow out of date. 
These dangers should be kept in mind always, 
and should be emphasized whenever it is proposed 
to incur them, because whenever we wish strongly 
to do a thing, we exaggerate the expected benefits 
and minimize the risk. 

A historian who indulges in prophecy deserves 
the fate of a fish out of water. Recall what the 
prophets were glibly saying, and half the world 
was believing, less than three years ago. There 
would never be a great war because (i) the engines 
of destruction had become so terrible that no 
troops would stand up before them; because (2) 
commerce had bound the nations together, and 
identified their interests; because (3) there would 
not be money enough to finance a war on the mod- 
ern scale; because (4) the Socialists and proletari- 
ans everywhere, members of a world-wide inter- 
national brotherhood, would refuse to fight against 
their fellows; because (5) no government or mon- 
arch could be so wicked or insane as to plunge 
mankind into the most horrible catastrophe in 
order to gratify personal or dynastic pride. 

So argued the prophets; yet within three 



INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 59 

months the war which they had proved impossible, 
had burst upon the world. After thirty months, 
this war is raging still. Such an example should 
put prophecy out of fashion for half a century. I, 
at least, will predict nothing definite as to what will 
happen at its close. 

But as it is clear, even now, that international 
readjustments on a world scale will be called for, 
so we may outline what might well be the general 
policy of the United States in the new system. 
For in spite of Washington, we shall be more inex- 
tricably entangled than ever. 

Twenty years ago Secretary John Hay said that 
by holding fast to the cardinal principles of the 
Monroe Doctrine and the Golden Rule, American 
diplomacy could hardly go far wrong. To-day, 
as I have remarked, the stability of the Monroe 
Doctrine is in doubt, and the Golden Rule was 
abrogated when our Government uttered no pro- 
test against the ravishing of Belgium. Whether 
the Monroe Doctrine stay or go, the restoration 
of the Golden Rule should be the first object of our 
Executive Department; because that describes 
the spirit in which all our diplomacy — nay, all our 
relations with the world — should be conducted. 
"In my experience of diplomatic life," John Hay 
said further — he was speaking in 1901 — "which 



60 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

now covers more years than I like to look back 
upon, and in the far greater record of American 
diplomacy which I have read and studied, I can say 
without hesitation that we have generally told 
squarely what we wanted, announced early in 
negotiation what we were willing to give, and 
allowed the other side to accept or reject our 
terms. " Let us restore this simple, straightfor- 
ward spirit to our diplomacy; let us stand again 
honoured among the nations. 

There are two matters on which the United 
States ought henceforth to exert a great influence; 
these are War and Democracy. 

When the present struggle ends, there should 
be a more serious effort than has ever been made 
before to conclude with the Great Powers of the 
world some league or agreement to prevent future 
wars. Militarism must be banned, as head- 
hunting — its primitive manifestation — was long 
ago banned. We must smite the old falsehood 
that human nature is always the same; on which is 
based the fallacy that war always has been and al- 
ways will be. Most of the gains which have 
raised man above his original brute state have 
been made in spite of, and often forcibly against, 
nature. Cannibalism was once common and quite 
in the way of nature; it is still practised by savages, 



INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 61 

but nobody urges this as a reason why we should 
be cannibals. So, too, of slavery. The historic 
fact is that the monarchs — who are the instiga- 
tors of most of the wars — have always encouraged 
the idea that war is inevitable. If they worked as 
zealously for peace, can we suppose that peace 
would not ensue? Latterly we have heard that 
war is a biological necessity. This fallacy also, 
based on a misinterpretation of the phrase "sur- 
vival of the fittest," has been exploded. Nearly 
two hundred years ago Cardinal Fleury, the astute 
minister of Louis XV, remarked to an enthusiast 
who had written a book to show how future wars 
could be prevented: "You have forgotten, Sir, 
as a preliminary article, to commence by sending a 
troop of missionaries to incline the heart and 
mind of the princes." 

It will devolve upon the United States, which 
have no Hohenzollern, or Hapsburg, or Romanoff 
or other dynastic ambition to serve by promoting 
war, to lead the nations of the world to recognize 
that peace, not war, should be civilized man's 
normal condition; and this we can never do by 
reiterating the catchwords of peace-at-any-price 
fanatics. 

Finally, the United States must stand among 
the Powers as the exponent of Democracy. Our 



62 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

diplomacy must be democratic. We must cease 
to have an apologetic, or by-your-leave manner 
in our international conferences — a manner which 
is not less offensive than that of the spread eagles 
who sometimes fill the halls of Congress with their 
screams. The representatives of Autocracy never 
apologize; they never beg pardon for urging their 
claims; as Adams remarked, they never indulge 
in "superfluous courtesy," nor take care to hide 
their belief that those with whom they are dealing 
are inferior beings. Let our diplomacy body forth, 
without bluster or evasion, its democratic essence. 

One who has had the vision of Democracy knows 
only too well that this ideal has never been realized, 
even afar off, in any actual democracy; but he 
knows that in this vision lies the hope of the human 
race. Despotism, the virtual ownership of the 
many by one or by a few, has existed since the days 
of the cavemen. Strip it of its modern trappings 
and subterfuges, which serve to disguise its real 
nature, and it is still in many respects pursuing the 
aims of the cavemen. But just as it required 
many ages before the revelation came in religion 
that each human being has an inviolable soul 
through which to apprehend the Infinite, so in 
civil and political life the conception developed 
slowly that each individual has rights which no 



INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 63 

despot — call him kaiser or call him "the State," 
as you please — should infringe. Then the convic- 
tion sank in that under Liberty alone can man at- 
tain his highest scope. As he is a moral agent, so 
he must be free to choose and to act; under Des- 
potism, both his choice and his acts are compul- 
sory. 

And so Democracy arose as the ideal system. 
Merely by being, it became the irreconcilable 
Antagonist of Despotism; every inch it gained, 
meant so much shorn from the despot's absolu- 
tism. During the nineteenth century, Democracy's 
advance seemed so irresistible, that we came to 
assume that it could not be checked, and we fur- 
ther assumed that its doctrines were so self- 
evident that any one who understood them would 
embrace them. In truth, however, ever since 
the fall of the Bastille in 1789, autocrats, and the 
privileged classes on which they depend, have been 
slowly assembling their forces in order to crush 
democracy. That is the motive at the heart of 
the present war. 

With the world thus aligned — the forces of 
Democracy on one side, the forces of Despotism 
on the other — an alignment which seems likely 
to stand for years, the general international policy 
of the United States is clear. In every combina- 



64 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

tion into which the question of Despotism enters 
as an integral and essential part, we must uphold 
the side of Democracy. To do less than this 
would be to deny our faith. 

Cases may arise in which we join with despotic 
countries to achieve a common purpose, but that 
purpose must be liberal, not despotic. Thus at 
the time of the Revolution we accepted the help 
and alliance of the despotic King of France — and 
to that alliance we owe more than we can ever re- 
pay. Thus, too, in 1859, Cavour did not hesitate 
to procure the assistance of the despot Napoleon 
III, in order to free Italy. Such examples show 
how our policy should turn. 

And so I repeat that, henceforth the United 
States must exert a greater influence than ever 
for Democracy. This supreme inheritance has 
come to us through no merits of our own. How 
many ages Destiny waited! Not to Greece or 
Rome, not to Imperial Spain, not to Renaissance 
Italy or France, not to Germany or to Russia 
did the Fates entrust this last, best gift; but they 
poured into the hearts of Washington and Adams, 
of Jefferson and Hamilton and Franklin an un- 
derstanding of Democracy, and confided to them 
the founding of this Republic. And later, Destiny 
embodied Democracy in Abraham Lincoln. 



INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 65 

In the long run alliances like friendships should 
be based on affinity. We should cleave to those 
whose traditions, whose ideals, whose standards 
of civilization are closest to ours. "By God! 
blood is thicker than water !" exclaimed the 
American Commander Tatnall, nearly sixty years 
ago, when he saw British men-of-war being ham- 
mered by the Chinese Forts; and he opened fire 
on the Forts. Thirty years later, when the prepos- 
terous German Admiral Diederichs threatened to 
attack Commodore Dewey at Manila, it was the 
British Commander Chichester who assured Dewey 
that he would stand by him. And at that very 
time, when Germany was secretly urging England 
to join a coalition to prevent the American fleet 
from operating against Spain, England replied 
that her fleet would be found between any coalition 
fleet and the American. Blood is thicker than 
water! Let that be remembered by the shapers 
of our future policy. 

This is our inheritance; this is our trust. Unless 
we are the backsliders we have lately seemed to 
the world, we must renew our faith in Democracy. 
We must be Democratic through and through at 
home — at home, where the most insidious anti- 
Democratic enemies are at work — in order to repre- 
sent Democracy in the eyes of all mankind. The 



66 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

Great Experiment has reached its crisis. Democ- 
racy, unorganized and undisciplined, is assailed by 
the elaborately prepared array of Despotism. Woe 
unto us if through our defection Democracy 
perish. 



Ill 

ARE THE HOHENZOLLERNS DOOMED? 

THE German ultimatum of January 31, 1917, 
with its affront to the United States, and its 
ill-disguised attempt to humiliate us by taking 
away our independence on the seas, was accept- 
ed at its true value by right-minded Americans. 
Not sufficient attention has been paid to it, however, 
as a symptom of the state of the German Empire, 
and especially of the anxiety of the German Kaiser. 
The resumption of submarine Frightfulness meant 
but one thing — desperation. 

Persons on the inside who knew the straits 
Germany was in believed the act of desperation 
would not be committed before next May or June; 
that it was ordered for February first indicates 
that the German plight was keener than had been 
supposed. Not that the Germans were actually 
starving, but that they had reached the point 
where they felt hungry all the time, and were 
beginning to understand that, as there was no 



'Reprinted by permission, North American Review, May, 1917. Copy- 
righted by the North American Review Publishing Company. 

67 



68 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

way to replenish their stores, the approach of 
real starvation was inevitable and would be more 
and more rapid. For a people which ordinarily 
devours more and drinks more than any other, 
deprivation of food was a grievous ordeal. It 
must have occurred to the Kaiser and the General 
Staff that possibly hunger might open the eyes 
of this docile and abjectly subservient people 
and that the Almightiest must have asked himself: 
"If they should awaken, what then?" Hunger 
would accept no excuses. Hunger might not be 
duped by lies. Other nations, plunged into ruin 
by arrogant and self-seeking monarchs, had, when 
their eyes were opened, taken the first opportunity 
of ridding themselves of those monarchs, either 
by killing them or by deposing them. England 
beheaded one Stuart, and drove another into exile; 
France repudiated the first Napoleon after 
Waterloo, and the third Napoleon after Sedan; and 
Spain ousted Isabella the Second: although none 
of these sovereigns, not even the great Napoleon, 
had brought on their respective countries such dis- 
asters as Germany has already suffered under 
William the Second. 

Napoleon used to be regarded as unrivalled as a 
concocter of false despatches and lying bulletins; 
but he dwindles into insignificance before the 



ARE THE HOHENZOLLERNS DOOMED? 69 

fabrications of William the Second. The Kaiser 
began the war with a lie when he told the Berlin 
populace that the sword had been forced into his 
hand, the fact being that for twenty-five years 
he had made every preparation to draw the sword 
at a favourable moment and had frequently "be- 
come so impatient to draw it that he rattled its 
scabbard ominously. He drew it on August 1, 
1914, because he supposed that the enemies whom 
he expected, by a quick dash, to make his victims, 
were unprepared. Even in those last days he 
might have prevented it by a single word to his 
vassal Austria; but he withheld that word, and 
when he found that Austria was opening " con- 
versations " with Russia he sent the ultimatum 
to Russia and the threat to France which assured 
war within twenty-four hours : and yet he pretended 
that the sword had been forced into his unwilling 
hand — and the German people believed him. 

The war once begun, he served his subjects with 
falsified news. For more than two months they 
were led to believe that he had overwhelmed the 
French and taken possession of Paris, and even 
to-day Germans are ignorant of their armies' de- 
feat at the Marne and of their retreat. So when 
the German troops — obedient to the system of 
Frightfulness, which had been elaborated in cold 



70 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

blood by the General Staff long before — perpe- 
trated atrocities hitherto unpractised in modern 
times by civilized men, the Kaiser saw to it that 
his Germans should believe that these atrocities 
were perpetrated on German soldiers by the French 
and by the Belgians. And this transparent deceit, 
which an Iroquois Indian would have disdained, 
was resorted to when each new horror was let loose, 
and the German people was duly humbugged. 

As time went on the Kaiser's scale of falsifying 
facts reached larger proportions. He told his 
Teutons and the world, for instance, that the 
United States had no right to export munitions to 
the Allies: and yet for fifty years Prussia has sold 
munitions to any belligerents in time of war, and 
sold them impartially, and the Kaiser has pre- 
sumably enjoyed the extra dividends which this 
traffic brought to him as a stockholder in the 
Krupp Works. His paid agents in the United 
States worked this dodge so persistently that they 
succeeded in having a bill introduced into Congress 
to put an embargo on the exportation of munitions. 
And yet no one doubts that if American munitions 
could have been or could now be landed in Ger- 
many the Kaiser would have bought as many of 
them as American dealers could supply. 

Next he declared that the British blockade was 



ARE THE HOHENZOLLERNS DOOMED? 71 

illegal, because a blockade to be legal must be 
effective; but in the same breath he protested 
against the cruelty of the British who by their 
blockade were starving the innocent non-combatant 
women and children of Germany. Yet to-day 
he is justifying the renewal of the submarine Fright- 
fulness on the ground that by it he can quickly 
starve England into submission and raise the 
British blockade which has reduced the Father- 
land to hunger. "Well," we ask, "how can the 
British blockade be both ineffective and so devil- 
ishly effective at the same time ?" But why expect 
even the consistency of a successful liar from 
clumsy perjurers who, when one false statement 
fails, contradict it by another equally false? 

Of all the German transactions with mendacity 
none has a more comic aspect than that by which 
they attempted a few months ago to convince their 
people that the Allies were responsible for the con- 
tinuation of the war. "We have beaten them," 
said the Kaiser and his echoes, "and yet they 
insist upon going on fighting. They are a wicked 
people not to know when they are beaten. Let 
the blood of further contest be on their heads! 
In my desire for peace, in my abhorrence of the 
inhumanity of war, I graciously condescend to 
stop now and to grant terms which will leave them 



72 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

shorn of territory, devastated, impoverished, and 
mightily bereaved, and will establish beyond cavil 
the fact that militarism pays and that there is no 
punishment for a predatory War Lord." Such 
the substance of the Imperial declaration. 

Similarly comic was the Kaiser's pronouncement 
as to the Battle of Jutland when he assured the 
world that he had won the sublimest naval victory 
of all time, a victory by which he became Lord 
High Admiral of the Atlantic (and probably of 
other oceans). Now a victory of that kind is 
easily verified. The victorious fleet not only 
holds the scene of the conflict, but it passes im- 
periously and unchallenged over every sea. But 
the German fleet that fought off Jutland not only 
did not stay on the scene, but it actually slunk 
away under cover of darkness to its well-protected 
base, from which it has taken care not to emerge 
since, its chief audacity being to send out occa- 
sionally in the night or in a fog a cruiser that can 
quickly run home when she sees an enemy. Such 
practices revolutionize our conception of a naval 
victory. Nelson's fleet did not slink away after 
Trafalgar, nor did Farragut after he crushed 
the enemy at Mobile Bay; and yet a victory so 
overpowering as to entitle the Kaiser to the 
supremacy of the ocean must at least have 



ARE THE HOHENZOLLERNS DOOMED? 73 

been as decisive as those of Farragut and of 
Nelson. 

The Kaiser now protests to his Hunnish hearers 
that the responsibility for war between Germany 
and the United States must fall on us. Germany, 
he says, has never wished for war with America. 
"Why should she?" we ask; "for, ever since 1914, 
she has committed with impunity whatever war- 
like or atrocious acts she chose. Her agents con- 
spired at violence here, to terrorize our people. 
They blew up factories, mines, and steamships; 
they connived at assassination; they organized 
sedition; on the high seas she destroyed our ships 
and our citizens without even an apology: and 
latterly, her submarines have sunk all ships 
without warning. Her crimes against humanity 
make respectable the deeds of pirates who sailed 
under the black flag." 

And when at last the United States takes steps 
to dispose of the German monster, Germany 
whines that she ought not to be treated in this 
fashion. A gunman, who shot up a town at pleas- 
ure, and insisted that nobody must stop him, could 
not act more contemptibly, if, when the police 
surrounded him, he whimpered that it wasn't 
fair. But the Prussian whimper has always been 
the counterpart of the Prussian truculence. 



74 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

It was doubtless as pleasant for the Kaiser to 
beguile his subjects with such tales, as it is for 
the victim of paresis to insist that he is sovereign 
of the world: but, as the Arab proverb says, 
"Falsehoods, like chickens, come home to roost." 
And even in Germany, if we may judge by the 
signs which reach us in spite of the most rigorous 
censorship, willingness to swallow the Kaiser's 
assertions is no longer universal. German soldiers 
who have gone back from the front have told their 
people that the army never entered Paris; and a 
few civilians, at least, must know that the German 
fleet, instead of sailing triumphantly over the At- 
lantic, has huddled prudently under cover at its 
base. The facts in regard to the rest of William's 
falsifications have also trickled through the dense 
barrier officially raised against the passage of 
perilous truth and through the predisposition to 
accept the Kaiser's utterances as a revelation from 
heaven. 

How far this has gone we cannot say, but the 
fact that the truth has penetrated any German 
minds — as recent utterances in the Reichstag indi- 
cate — is of great significance; for it must inevitably 
spread, and unless the entire German nation is as 
barbarous as the acts and creeds of the Prussian 
militarists who have misled it, there will be, when 



ARE THE HOHENZOLLERNS DOOMED? 75 

the truth is generally understood, a mighty revul- 
sion against the misleaders, the Kaiser first of all. 
That he has already had an inkling of this possibly 
appears from the frequency with which he has 
disavowed his responsibility. "I did not will 
war/ 5 he has reiterated; but if the war were really 
the stupendous victory which he has also pro- 
claimed it to be, is it not strange that he evades 
taking credit for it? Such modesty in him would 
be unlooked for; assuredly, it is suspicious. 

The political revolution in Russia has given the 
Kaiser and his Ring terrible anxiety: for although 
the Slavs at Petrograd who carried that revolution 
through are, politically, far in advance of the 
Germans, there is still the possibility, at least, that 
some Germans may try to imitate them, and so 
start an avalanche which may bury the Autocrat 
and his satellites. The deification of the Czar 
did not save him: what if the "Me and Gott" 
superstition should fail to save the Kaiser? 

From now on the gnawing at the stomachs of 
seventy million Germans — a gnawing that will 
grow day by day more mordant as the means to 
appease it lessens — will force the seventy million 
German minds, dependent on those hungry stom- 
achs, to inquire: "What have we been fighting 
for? Why should we go on fighting?" The se- 



76 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

ductive dream of World-Empire, which they had 
been taught to cherish, during the twenty years 
before 1914, was dashed at the Battle of the Marne. 
The dream which they substituted for it of an em- 
pire extending from the North Sea to the Persian 
Gulf, seems likewise unattainable. "Why, then, 
should we go on fighting? All these projects 
were undertaken to gratify the ambition of the 
Kaiser, who imagined himself greater than Na- 
poleon, and of the Junkers and militarist oligarchy, 
who, having throttled Prussia, have Prussianized 
Germany. The Kaiser and his henchmen de- 
ceived us by assuring us that the immense costs 
of this war would not fall upon us but upon the 
vanquished enemy, from whom crushing indemni- 
ties would be wrung; but we see now that there will 
be no indemnities except those that we may be 
compelled to pay. The deceivers, these betrayers 
of Germany, have sacrificed her good name. 
Only a generation ago, before we were inoculated 
with the Prussian virus, which like a serpent's 
sting maddens its victim, we were honoured 
throughout the world: where is our honour now? 
Our word is despised: we tear up treaties and 
forswear our pledges; by our system of Frightful- 
ness we have reverted to the level of Huns and 
have earned the loathing and abhorrence of the 



ARE THE HOHENZOLLERNS DOOMED? 77 

civilized world forever. What gain in territory 
could compensate for this loss of honour or could 
redeem us from this reversion to the standards of 
the brute?" 

Such poignant questions we can believe that 
the intrepid Liebknecht and those who think like 
him, are already asking themselves; and the num- 
ber of such questioners must surely increase. We 
can easily imagine that the princes and the people 
of the non-Prussian German states also will begin 
to search their hearts. The King of Bavaria, for 
instance, may wake up to perceive that he has been 
wasting his Bavarian treasure and his Bavarian 
troops in a war for the glory of Prussia and of the 
House of Hohenzollern. Possibly some Bavarian 
will recall that complimentary Prussian saying — 
"A Bavarian is the missing link between monkeys 
and Austrians." Even if the war had resulted in 
the winning of world-power, it would be Prussia 
and the King of Prussia who profited by it; and in 
proportion as the King of Prussia, under his alias 
of the German Emperor, become magnified, the 
King of Bavaria would be reduced to insignificance. 
And this would be true of the King of Wiirtemberg 
and the other princes. If the war ends in the 
defeat of Germany without the destruction of 
Prussian militarism, it is quite within probability 



78 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

that Prussia may annex Bavaria, Saxony, Wiirtem- 
berg, and the other autonomous states, depose their 
rulers, and abolish their independent govern- 
ments. This action might serve as a sop for the 
insatiable ambition of the Hohenzollerns. Nor 
is the idea fanciful, since Bismarck in 1866 de- 
spoiled Hanover and other non-Prussian German 
states in order to aggrandize Prussia. When 
such thoughts begin to seethe in the brain of the 
Bavarian King, he, too, may ask himself: "What 
are we Bavarians fighting for?" So long as there 
was a likelihood that he and his brother princes 
might receive a share of the world — which the 
Pan-Germanists, inspired from Prussia, preached 
was to be won in this war — they might think it 
worth while to engage in the adventure. Paternal 
and dynastic pride must justifiably swell at the 
thought that the Bavarian Crown Prince might rule 
as Proconsul of England, or a Wurtemberg prince 
as Satrap of New York State, or a Saxon personage 
as Viceroy of India, and all within a year or two. 
But General Foch pricked all those bubbles on 
September 9, 1914. 

In nothing have the Hohenzollerns since 1871 
been more astute than in persuading the non- 
Prussian Germans that their welfare, if not their 
very existence, depended upon the House of Hohen- 



ARE THE HOHENZOLLERNS DOOMED? 79 

zollern. Military service fostered this creed; so did 
the educational system, which, from the kinder- 
garten to the highest grades of the university, 
magnified the person and authority of the Kaiser. 
The mighty influence and fame of Bismarck — to 
whom was owing far more than to the King of 
Prussia himself the creation of the German Empire, 
with the consequent glorification of the Hohen- 
zollern — helped immensely in this process, because 
he was regarded as a German national hero long 
before they were accepted as the national over- 
lords. The schoolboy of Baden or Saxony or 
Bavaria was brought up to acknowledge allegiance 
to the ruler of his special state, but he inevitably 
recognized a higher allegiance to the German 
Emperor, who was actually supreme. If the 
German Emperor decided to make war, the small 
monarchs had perforce to follow him; because, 
although there is the pretense of equality in the 
German Imperial Federation, it is a pretense and 
nothing more. From 1866, Prussia has taken 
care to hold the dominant vote and the little 
princes have taken care, after casting their vote, 
not to risk extinction by thwarting Prussia. 

The question now is whether the loyalty of the 
Germans to the Hohenzollern monarch will hold 
in disaster. Now, when the Kaiser has not won, 



80 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

what do non-Prussians think? They say little or 
nothing yet — except a few significant voices in 
Parliament — because it is still dangerous to speak 
out; but they must be thinking; and as they 
enjoy once a fortnight the luxury of an ounce of 
meat-dripping or a quarter of a sausage, they must 
.be formulating opinions in regard to the Kaiser 
who has reduced them to this. 

What are their opinions? Do they begin to 
suspect that they were duped by those rainbow 
promises of the Kaiser? Do they ask on what 
ground the Kaiser and the General Staff asserted 
that the war would be a very easy enterprise — 
two or three weeks in which to destroy France 
and then a month, at the longest, to crush Russia ? 
Do they doubt whether a war lord who made so 
colossal, so ruinous, a misestimate of the primary 
factors in the war, is a leader to be trusted or to be 
obeyed any further? How must German fathers 
and mothers feel on learning that when the Kaiser 
was told at the beginning of the war that it would 
cost a million lives to hack his way to Paris, he 
replied, cold-bloodedly: "Go ahead! We can 
spare them!" This same Kaiser sacrificed half a 
million Germans at Verdun in the hope of winning 
a victory which would give prestige to the degen- 
erate Crown Prince: do the scores of thousands 



ARE THE HOHENZOLLERNS DOOMED? 81 

of bereaved families of those soldiers, immolated 
for the dynastic schemes of the Hohenzollerns, 
regard such slaughter, for such a purpose, with 
approval? On one hand, half a million of the best 
soldiers in Germany, on the other, a weasel- 
featured crown prince. 

The stability of the Kaiser obviously depends on 
his success in hiding from the German people the 
truth about the war. It seems unlikely that he 
can keep up much longer his original falsehood 
that the jealous and wicked enemies of Germany 
had leagued themselves together against the Ger- 
man nation. For a long time, myriads of Germans 
have known that this was not true, but of course 
they have held their tongues. The silly pretense 
that Belgium was about to invade the Fatherland 
has also been discarded. So, too, the charge that 
England was the aggressor fell foolishly when it 
was known that, at the outbreak of the war, she 
had less than 160,000 soldiers ready for immediate 
service, and that she required more than a year in 
order to train and to put into the field a million men. 
Many Germans are quite aware of these truths 
now but they go on denying them because they do 
not dare to disobey orders from above, and because 
the official German has been taught to believe that 
a lie well stuck to is more effective than truth. 



82 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

But what will happen when the day of disillu- 
sionment comes to the German people, when they 
understand that the war was not thrust upon them 
by wicked enemies but that their Kaiser and his 
militarist ring engaged in it for selfish and dynastic 
ends ? The Kaiser can hardly go on much longer 
appeasing them by telling them that they hold 
Belgium and northeastern France, Poland, Serbia, 
and Roumania. Even a docile people will at last 
inquire why it is that these victories, instead of 
bringing peace, simply serve to protract the war? 
Why does each " victory'* increase their hunger? 
The answer is, to quote a common Hindu proverb, 
that "He who holds a tiger by the ears dares not 
let go"; but the Kaiser, of course, would not 
vouchsafe so true a statement. Nevertheless, 
the German people must before long begin to sus- 
pect the truth, and in their hour of disillusionment 
they may rise in wrath and smash the House of 
Hohenzollern. That is what other races, more ad- 
vanced in political consciousness and self-respect 
and less servile in traditions, would do. We 
surmise that that is what the Kaiser himself 
fears they may do. He is now in a position similar 
to that of the French Terrorists. He has adopted 
the atrocious method of unlimited submarine war- 
fare as a last desperate expedient, just as Robe- 



ARE THE HOHENZOLLERNS DOOMED? 83 

spierre, in 1793, resorted to the frightful dispensa- 
tion of the guillotine which never stopped. Atro- 
city for atrocity, the Kaiser's is the more abomin- 
able, and it may fail him as surely as unlimited 
guillotining failed to save the Terrorists. 

The French — a high-spirited people, accessible to 
the noblest ideals, but ground down and almost 
cretinized by the Bourbon regime — rose and ousted 
the Bourbon king and put him to death, and then, 
when they found themselves being exterminated 
by the Terrorists, they rose and guillotined them. 
The Germans are a very different people, but, 
sooner or later, they, too, will feel the irresistible 
impulse of liberty and will rise against the Hohen- 
zollern Dynasty which has deprived them of it, 
which has seduced them into a terrible war, sub- 
jected them to immense hardships, and brought 
them to the brink of ruin. Perhaps the day is 
at hand when they will repudiate their betrayers. 



IV 

JOHN HAY'S POLICY OF ANGLO— SAXONISM 1 

THE permanent hates and friendships of a na- 
tion, like those of an individual, should be 
rooted in character, not in caprice. Among the 
elements which go to form character in a nation, 
is geography: thus, but for her unexampled geo- 
graphical position, Germany for instance would 
never have thought of dominating Europe and the 
world ; for geography more than doubles the fight- 
ing advantage of her military power. 

When we look back over history, however, 
we find that caprice rather than character has 
often been the cause of wars and of international 
likes and dislikes. Under caprice, we must reckon 
the personal ambition, dreams, theories, of rulers 
and statesmen — a fact which sufficiently confutes 
those who assert that the individual counts for 
nothing in shaping human destiny. Take Eng- 
land and France during the nineteenth century, 
and see how their governments blow now hot now 
cold. After Waterloo, when the Napoleonic peril 

^rom the World's Work, November, 1917. 

84 



JOHN HAY'S POLICY 85 

was crushed, England got on comfortably with 
France for more than two decades, and then — 
on Louis-Philippe's attempt to marry the French 
princes to women who, England thought, would 
dangerously increase the political influence of 
France — England was on the point of declaring 
war on France. And yet, in less than ten years she 
had joined France in an actual war against Russia. 
The Crimean Campaign had scarcely been ended 
before England, alarmed by the supposed trucu- 
lence of the French Emperor and his militarist 
ring, was preparing for a war with France. Never- 
theless, during the American Civil War official 
England combined with France in abetting un- 
officially the Southern Confederacy. Owing to 
the shortsightedness of British statesmen, which 
led them to follow rigidly their policy of splendid 
isolation; owing also to the pro-German prefer- 
ences of Queen Victoria and her Court, England 
allowed Prussia to mangle Denmark in 1864, to 
overwhelm Austria in 1866, and to crush and dis- 
member France in 1870-71. 

Thereafter, however, she began to have an ink- 
ling of what the domination of a Prussianized Ger- 
many meant, and in 1875 when Bismarck planned 
to force another war on France and to bleed her 
white — for she had recovered her strength eco- 



86 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

nomic and military too rapidly for him — England 
privately intimated to him that she could not 
tolerate such aggression. 

In 1882 came the upheaval in Egypt, which 
broke up the dual control of England and France, 
and left in its wake much rancour. During the 
twenty years which followed, her relations with 
France fluctuated between friendliness and dis- 
trust bordering on hostility. And yet at the 
Congress of Berlin, Lord Salisbury connived 
with Bismarck to give France a free hand in 
Tunis — an act which was secretly intended by 
Bismarck to weaken France in her capacity to 
attack Germany. Then the Fashoda Incident 
flared up and kindled in British breasts a sud- 
den fiery desire for war. 

Here assuredly is a list — I might lengthen 
it if I went into more details — which shows the 
lack of a solid policy toward France during the 
nineteenth century; this lack must be attributed, 
of course, to the absence of any great foreign 
minister in England during that period — for the 
fiction cherished by British Tories, that the late 
Lord Salisbury was a great Foreign Minister, is 
exploded. With the accession of King Edward 
VII, in 1901, light began to break. He saw, 
and his advisers saw, that the great menace, 



JOHN HAY'S POLICY 87 

not only to England's commercial prosperity 
but to the peace of the world, was Germany's 
now unconcealed ambition with which the House 
of Hohenzollern identified its fortunes. England 
abandoned her splendid but sterile isolation. 
Within five years Edward the Tactful had quietly 
made agreements with France and other countries, 
to repel, if need be, a German irruption. So much 
for the mottled Anglo-French relations during the 
century between Waterloo and the outbreak of 
the Atrocious War. Does not this record suggest 
that those relations have been almost haphazard, 
not to say opportunist in the shallowest sense ? 

Consider, now, how England and the United 
States have got on together since our American 
Independence was sealed at Yorktown in 178 1. 

The Colonies revolted against the Mother 
Country primarily to recover the liberties which 
every Englishman regarded as his own by right 
of a long inheritance. As the war went on, and 
the wisest Americans looked forward to the con- 
dition which would confront them at its close, 
they decided that not Liberty alone but Independ- 
ence also must be achieved. And so they created 
a new nation, a Republic in form but embodying 
in its substance the very principles of the English 
Commonwealth from which they had broken away. 



88 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

They had the same love of liberty, the same instinc- 
tive veneration for individual rights, the same 
common law. There is much to be said in favour 
of those historians who regard the installation by 
the United States of a Democracy in form as well 
as in substance as the logical consummation 
of the political and social evolution which had 
gone on in England since the Norman Conquest. 
That evolution found at home great obstacles to 
the regular process; but in America, where the con- 
ditions were obviously freer, where also the re- 
tarding survivals of Feudalism had gained no 
foothold, Democracy, the inevitable product of 
Anglo-Saxonism, found a natural home. 

So the American Revolution was like a family 
break, in which when the son comes of age, and 
is thwarted or oppressed by an obdurate father, 
he asserts his own independence; and, as usually 
happens in family breaks, much bitterness re- 
mained on both sides. American patriots could 
always rouse their countrymen by citing the 
wicked acts or intentions of the British; and the 
British often justified such citation. If any of 
them ever dreamt that some time or other the 
new American Nation would fall to pieces and 
be absorbed in the British Empire, the War of 
1812 quenched that dream. That war, rather 



JOHN HAY'S POLICY 89 

inglorious on both sides, left no doubt as to the 
permanence of the United States. Thenceforth 
the official, commercial, and social relations of the 
two countries became almost friendly; but the 
Americans felt keenly the superciliousness of some 
of their British critics. They were conscious of 
being engaged in the work of building up a mighty 
nation; they wished to be judged by their ideals 
and not by the imperfections of the moment. So 
they winced when Dickens held up the barbarities 
of a frontier village as if it were a fair example 
of the fruits of American Democracy; they winced 
when Sydney Smith asked: "Who reads an Ameri- 
can book?" Now, just as in a family feud, per- 
haps overfrank criticisms wound the sensitive 
members without causing overt hostility, so this 
attitude of the people of the Mother Country 
toward their cousins across the sea caused heart 
burnings but led to no open quarrel. 

Indeed, the United States had so far reestab- 
lished official friendship with England that as early 
as 1823 — only eight years after the battle of New 
Orleans — President Monroe and John Quincy Ad- 
ams accepted the proposal of the English states- 
man, George Canning, and agreed to prevent the 
restoration of Spanish monarchical rule in the Amer- 
ican Hemisphere. This agreement, after under- 



9 o VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

going many changes, appears as the Monroe Doc- 
trine of to-day. During the next generation, the 
two countries lived amicably although several 
questions spurted up and kindled temporary ex- 
citement. Disputes over our northern boundary 
even caused our grandfathers to rally to the battle 
cry "Fifty-four forty, or fight," but the prudent 
on both sides prevailed; the rasping issues were 
smoothed by compromise and a treaty cemented 
peace, which has been in danger of breaking only 
twice for more than seventy years. 

The first occasion was during our Civil War 
when the British Government through laxness 
almost permitted a breach of neutrality in favour 
of the Southern Confederacy. The second was at 
the end of 1895 when President Cleveland fired 
at England his terrific message on the Venezuela 
Boundary Question. As a cause of irritation and 
enmity the behaviour of a part of the British upper 
classes in 1862-63 was quite as potent as was the 
protection given privateers and blockade runners 
or the fitting out of the Alabama. Our fathers re- 
sented the actual hostility and they felt a disap- 
pointment mingled with contempt for Britishers 
speaking the English language and bred on the 
English principles of justice and liberty who sided 
with the Southern slave-holders. Although the 



JOHN HAY'S POLICY 91 

resentment has lasted to this day it would long 
since have smouldered into oblivion but for the 
existence here of an element which cultivated 
the hatred of England with fanatical tenacity. 

This element was the Irish, who after 1840 
immigrated to this country in large numbers, 
and bore in their hearts an undying grievance 
against English rule in Catholic Ireland. That 
that rule had been harsh and unsympathetic, if 
not actually cruel, no one can doubt; and op- 
pressed Ireland would have had the same general 
sympathy which the Americans gave to Italy, 
Hungary, and the other downtrodden European 
countries, if the leaders of the Irish Cause here 
had been men of different character. Displaying a 
remarkable talent for the lower sort of politics, the 
Irish got control of our large cities, and, in spite of 
their temperamental passion for cracking each 
other's heads, they kept together as a political 
body — partly because only by keeping together 
could they capture and divide the rich spoils, 
partly by their Roman Catholic affiliations, and 
partly by the desire to help their friends at home. 
The Irish were the first foreign immigrants who 
perpetuated their home feuds here, and who in- 
jected into American politics troubles which did 
not concern America, but were purely Irish. To 



92 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

secure — and, having secured, to hold and control 
— the Irish vote became a commonplace for Amer- 
ican politicians. English rule in Ireland slowly 
improved, but the Irish-Americans, who made a 
business of exploiting Irish grievances, simply 
increased the virulence of their attacks on England. 
Impartial observers on the outside perceived that 
this was the easiest method by which the agitators 
could contrive to wring contributions from the 
Irish-American population. Where the money 
went was never disclosed; the condition of needy 
peasants in County Kerry might not be benefited 
by it, but the condition of the agitators and their 
accomplices suffered no harm. No worthy cause 
has ever had worse promoters than that of Ireland 
has had here. 

The result of the Irish agitation in the United 
States has been twofold; it has hurled into our 
politics a foreign feud which has often taken 
precedence in congessional or legislative questions 
over purely American affairs; it has fostered and 
kept alive the anti-British feeling, which was fast 
dying out. The early history books used in our 
public schools breathed hatred against British red 
coats; the later ones, compiled with a view to being 
acceptable to public school trustees and pupils, 
may have changed their language but they have 



JOHN HAY'S POLICY 93 

not moderated their anti-British spirit. Until the 
present war — when we have seen the Irish mayors 
of some of our cities preside over meetings at 
which Hibernian demagogues have lauded Prussia 
and denounced an alliance which made us a part- 
ner of England in the great struggle of Civilization 
against Hunnish Barbarism — I recall no instance of 
Irish truculence more striking than the attempt to 
discredit and cause the dismissal of James Russell 
Lowell more than thirty years ago. Mr. Lowell 
was then the American Minister in London and he 
had to deal with several cases of Irishmen who 
claimed to be American citizens, in order to 
gain immunity from the crimes they committed in 
Ireland. A man who uses this subterfuge is 
sufficiently despicable, but the Irish fire-eaters 
here, instead of repudiating such sneaks, as- 
sailed Mr. Lowell as an unpatriotic and false 
American, a grovelling Anglomaniac, and they 
used all their threats and persuasion to make 
President Arthur recall him. Aristophanes him- 
self could not have devised a situation more sar- 
donically humorous than this: the most American 
of Americans being barked at as disloyal by Irish 
immigrants many of whom had not yet been nat- 
uralized as Americans. Perhaps it adds a comic 
touch when I say that Mr. Lowell told me that 



94 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

he was one of the first, if not the first, to urge upon 
Mr. Gladstone the policy of Home Rule, after the 
Phoenix Park murders in 1882. His trust in free- 
dom, his belief that justice alone can finally settle 
long-standing quarrels, were fundamental, not to 
be shaken even by the snarling of his traducers. 

I do not wish to exaggerate the anti-British 
propaganda of the Irish-Americans, or to at- 
tribute to their whole body excesses in tenets, 
methods, and acts which belonged to a pestilent 
minority among them, and which were quite 
un-American; but nobody can understand the 
fluctuations in American feeling toward Eng- 
land in the nineteenth century without taking into 
account the great influence here which the Irish 
have had. Only we must take care not to measure 
the real state of public opinion by the capacity of 
a few to vociferate. 

In the last decade of the nineteenth century, the 
United States and England were officially on 
friendly terms, having only some small griev- 
ances of long standing (mostly referring to fish- 
eries and other matters in which Canada was in- 
volved) to disturb the monotony of their friendli- 
ness. Then, at the end of December, 1895, Presi- 
dent Cleveland, through his Secretary of State, 
Richard Olney, addressed to the British Govern- 



JOHN HAY'S POLICY 95 

ment a bludgeon-like message, intimating that 
England must either submit her quarrel with 
Venezuela over their boundary line to arbitration, 
or take the consequences. Both America and 
England were amazed, startled, and almost stam- 
peded into blows by the tone and suddenness of 
this document. It is hardly too much to say that 
the whole world held its breath in astonishment. 
Perhaps it was John Bull's phlegmatic tempera- 
ment that caused him to delay for a little before 
taking action which would plunge him irrevocably 
into war. Perhaps it was that habit of sobriety 
which has characterized for generations past 
the real statesmanship of England. The wisest 
men of both nations laboured mightily to prevent 
a clash, and they succeeded. Lord Salisbury's 
Government recognized that it would be mon- 
strous for Great Britain and the United States 
to cut each other's throats over a question in- 
volving only a few hundred square miles of un- 
inhabited wilderness, between Venezuela and Brit- 
ish Guiana. They also recognized, as did just 
men throughout the world, that the principle of 
arbitration on which President Cleveland insisted 
ought to be followed and upheld in international 
disputes. 
Though England backed down, as it was vul- 



96 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

garly said, and her official intercourse with the 
United States went on unruffled, the incident could 
not fail to rankle in British hearts. 

It happened that in 1896 a Presidential cam- 
paign took place. Major McKinley was the 
Republican candidate; Mr. William J. Bryan, 
his opponent, had disrupted the Democratic 
Party and hoped to be elected on a platform 
which declared for free silver: that is, a debased 
and dishonest currency. The English, unflinch- 
ing in their support of the gold standard, had the 
further reason to hope for the election of McKin- 
ley in that it would bring a different policy into 
the American Department of State. 

Here John Hay enters, quite unofficially, as 
an international figure. He was now 59 years 
old, he had had a varied career, distinguished 
in many ways. In his youth he had served 
President Lincoln as private secretary, and he 
was the intimate companion of that great and 
lonely man. Then he had spent five years as a 
diplomat in France, in Austria, and in Spain. For 
several years he ranked as the most brilliant 
editorial writer on the New York Tribune, at 
the time when that journal stood at the head in 
America. He had published volumes of prose 
and poetry, which carried his name beyond the 



JOHN HAY'S POLICY 97 

seas and brought him friendship among literary 
men. A keen student of politics, he knew the 
political currents and the politicians at Wash- 
ington, New York, and in the Middle West. 
Under Evarts he served as Assistant Secretary 
of State during the Hayes administration. He 
and Nicolay published a monumental history of 
Abraham Lincoln which gave him another dur- 
able sort of fame. Persons who thought about 
it at all wondered why John Hay, the stanch 
Republican, with almost every qualification for 
public office, had never been put forward by his 
party. The reason was, as President Harrison 
brutally expressed it, "There isn't any politics 
in it." This was true, for with all his charm and 
attractions Hay never had a political following. 
Now, however, he made what I may call his social 
fitness tell in behalf of our country, and thereby 
he probably served it better than he could have 
done had he held an official post. 

The summer of 1896, while the Republicans 
and the Bryanites were campaigning over here, 
John Hay spent in England and in France. He 
not only had many cherished friends in Eng- 
land but he also had social access to some of 
the most influential public men; and these he 
assured that England must not hope for any 



98 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

change in foreign policy in the Venezuelan affair 
in the event of Major McKinley's election. No 
American party, he said, would reverse the policy 
of Arbitration. He also soothed as far as he could 
the irritation which the message had caused, and 
since he spoke as a private American gentleman 
known to be personally trustworthy, and to have the 
confidence of McKinley and the other Republican 
leaders, his words sank in. We cannot estimate 
how far such an influence extends, we can only say 
that the ruling class in England felt more kindly 
toward the United States after John Hay's friendly 
visit than before. 

The next spring, Major McKinley having been 
elected, he appointed Hay Ambassador to Great 
Britain. During the intervening months Hay 
had been pondering over the changed position into 
which the United States were thrust by the brusque 
assertion of the Monroe Doctrine. He saw that 
this made us a World Power, and although he could 
not foresee into what vicissitudes this transforma- 
tion might carry us, he knew that we could never 
be as a nation what we had been, and that we 
must lay out and pursue a new policy adapted to 
the risks and obligations of our new position. I 
would not imply that he had as yet formulated 
any definite scheme, but rather that his alert mind, 



JOHN HAY'S POLICY 99 

being aware of the change, was on the lookout for 
new symptoms, and was prepared to deal quickly 
with them. 

Hay reached England early in May, 1897, and 
during the ensuing year he made himself persona 
grata in official circles, and even more through his 
unofficial friendly intercourse with the English, he 
extended his influence, and greatly enhanced the 
good feeling between the two peoples. That he 
did this deliberately, as the result of much medita- 
tion, which had crystallized into conviction, there 
can be no doubt. And events soon burst upon 
the world which put his conviction to the test and 
justified it. In April, 1898, the United States, 
after watching long and patiently Spanish inhu- 
manities in Cuba, declared war against Spain, and 
proposed to aid Cuba to her independence. The 
Continental Powers of Europe received this decla- 
ration angrily. France and Germany had invested 
much capital in Spain, and this would be put in 
jeopardy if Spain had to bear the heavy financial 
burden of a war. Also since Cleveland's Venezuela 
Message proclaiming the Monroe Doctrine, the 
European nations, some more, some less, felt ag- 
grieved by it, and wished to probe how far the 
United States would back up their truculent chal- 
lenge to the non-American world. 



ioo VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

During the weeks which succeeded the sinking 
of the Maine (February 15, 1898), Hay left nothing 
undone to propitiate England, and he worked to 
good purpose; for after the declaration of war, 
Germany very secretly asked England to join her 
and France in putting their fleets between Cuba 
and the United States Fleet. The English Foreign 
Secretary replied promptly "No" and he added 
that if the British Fleet took any part in the war, 
it would be to stand between the European fleets 
and the American. The immense service which 
England rendered the United States by this act 
cannot be overestimated, and it should more than 
offset, as I think, the unfriendliness of the British 
Tories toward us during our Civil War. Reflect 
for a moment what would have happened if Eng- 
land had listened to Germany's reptilian proposal. 
With those three European fleets guarding the 
coast of Cuba, we could never have reached that 
island, much less have landed our armies on it. 
And so we should have been forced to call off the 
War with Spain, a humiliation for which modern 
history has no parallel. Or if our ships had been 
so insane as to attack those of the European coali- 
tion, we should have had a war with England, 
France, and Germany on our hands, our Atlantic 
seaboard would have been defenseless, and all our 



JOHN HAY'S POLICY 101 

sea cities from Charleston to Eastport would have 
been at the mercy of our enemies. What losses 
we should have suffered, what huge indemnities 
we should have had to pay, who can compute? 
Kaiser William remarked at the time to an Eng- 
lishman who repeated the remark to Mr. Joseph 
Chamberlain : " If I had had a larger fleet I would 
have taken Uncle Sam by the scruff of the neck." 
What the Prussian Despot means when he takes a 
nation by the scruff of the neck, the world has 
since learned. 

If England had nursed any malign ambition 
against the United States, if she wished to injure 
our industrial and commercial prosperity, or to 
gain territory, or merely to pay back old grievances 
and especially the brusque, not to say brutal 
Venezuela Message, she had only to join the naval 
coalition with which the Kaiser tempted her. Had 
she done that, the Monroe Doctrine would have 
vanished into thin air, as thistledown is blown 
away and disappears before the autumn gale; for 
what does the Monroe Doctrine signify, unless it 
be upheld by a powerful United States? This 
most friendly English act, known in that crisis 
only to a very few in London and in Washington, 
must become more and more venerated by Ameri- 
cans; and I hope that the time is not far off when 



102 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

the name of the British statesman who made that 
decision is as familiar here and is as much revered 
as is that of the great-hearted Frenchman Lafayette 
who, in our earliest national crisis, brought succour 
and risked his life in order that the American Col- 
onies might establish their independence. 

Unhampered by serious foreign interference we 
freed Cuba in the summer of 1898. Late in Sep- 
tember John Hay returned to Washington, to be 
Secretary of State, a position which he held until 
his death, July 1, 1905. He knew what England had 
replied to Germany, and he could have told, per- 
haps better than any one else, how much his 
straightforwardness and urbanity, whether social 
or official, had helped to dispose the English to be 
friendly toward us. He had been frequently with 
Mr. Chamberlain and on familiar terms; and we 
can imagine with what satisfaction he read the 
speech which that statesman made at Birmingham 
on May 1 1, 1898. 

"What is our next duty?" Mr. Chamberlain 
asked his hearers. "It is to establish and to main- 
tain bonds of permanent amity with our kinsmen 
across the Atlantic. There is a powerful and a 
generous nation. They speak our language. 
They are bred of our race. Their laws, their 
literature, their standpoint upon every question, 



JOHN HAY'S POLICY 103 

are the same as ours. Their feeling, their interests 
in the cause of humanity and the peaceful develop- 
ments of the world are identical with ours. I don't 
know what the future has in store for us; I don't 
know what arrangements may be possible with us; 
but this I do know and feel, that the closer, the 
more cordial, the fuller, and the more definite these 
arrangements are, with the consent of both peoples, 
the better it will be for both and for the world — and 
I even go so far as to say that, terrible as war may 
be, even war itself would be cheaply purchased if, 
in a great and noble cause, the Stars and Stripes 
and the Union Jack should wave together over an 
Anglo-Saxon alliance. " 

"Chamberlain's startling speech," Hay wrote 
to Senator Lodge from London, "was partly due 
to a conversation I had with him, in which I hoped 
he would not let the Opposition have a monopoly 
of expressions of good will to America." 

Hay knew also that Chamberlain did not stop 
at the friendliest words merely; because he knew — 
and the American public does not yet know — what 
took place at Manila when the preposterous Von 
Diederichs, the German Admiral, threatened Com- 
modore Dewey, and Chichester, the British com- 
mander, privately informed Dewey that if there 
were trouble the Union Jack would fight beside the 



104 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

Stars and Stripes. Dewey was not the man to be 
intimidated by the superior German force but he 
doubtless felt more comfortable after receiving 
Chichester's assurance. That assurance was the 
practical proof of Chamberlain's — that is England's 
— friendship for us. 

Once in Washington, at the head of the Depart- 
ment of State, John Hay made the maintenance 
of the mutual good will between the United States 
and Great Britain the cardinal point of his policy. 
Secretary Hay had no thought, however, that he 
was conceding everything. Far from it. "All 
I have ever done with England," he wrote to 
Secretary John W. Foster, on June 23, 1900, "is 
to have wrung great concessions out of her with no 
compensation. And yet, these idiots say I'm not 
an American because I don't say, To hell with 
the Queen,' at every breath." There were critics, 
of course, who did not refrain from insinuating 
that he had become an Anglomaniac, "a tool of 
England," one of those degenerate Americans 
whose snobbish instincts burst forth and blossom 
in the atmosphere breathed by the British nobility. 
Even his friends, like Senator Lodge, feared at 
times that Hay in his desire to be friendly and more 
than fair to England, saw some matters from too 
strictly an English point of view. But John Hay 



JOHN HAY'S POLICY 105 

was an American through and through, and his 
Americanism does not require my defense or that 
of any one else. In his youth he spent four years 
at the elbow of Abraham Lincoln in whom he saw 
Democracy embodied, active, beneficent, inde- 
fectible. Then, after having studied the Despo- 
tisms of Napoleon III at Paris, and of Francis 
Joseph at Vienna, he wrote John Bigelow: "I am 
a Republican till I die; when we get to heaven, 
we can try a monarchy, perhaps." 

When the Irish demagogues learned that Hay 
favoured the English in the Boer War, they abused 
him as they had Lowell. If he could have spoken 
out then in regard to England's help to us in 
squelching the proposed coalition of European 
fleets against us in 1898, I imagine he would have 
said: "Since the first Irishman landed in this 
country till now, the Irish-Americans have never 
done any service to the United States comparable 
to this. When you have, you may abuse. Mean- 
while, drop your hyphen in the only simple, loyal, 
patriotic way; become Americans." 

No, Secretary Hay's policy was not based on 
a snobbish Anglomania, but on the perception 
that the welfare of the world depended then, and 
would depend more and more, on the firmest alli- 
ance between the two great English-speaking 



106 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

nations. This alliance, he recognized, could never 
be preserved on the ground of material interest. 
He knew that among nations of high-minded men, 
mere trade can never be the dominant reason for 
friendship or hostility. "By God! " said Com- 
modore Tatnall, the American commander, as he 
steered his ship to aid the English ships which were 
being pounded by the Chinese forts in i860, "blood 
is thicker than water." Hay knew that in origin 
and in essence American blood and English blood 
run from the same veins, the veins of men who had 
supported Saxon Alfred, who had demanded the 
Great Charter which curtailed the tyranny of the 
king; who had risen up and suffered martyrdom in 
behalf of religious freedom — comrades of Hampden 
and Cromwell, believers in the law of Habeas 
Corpus, of the Bill of Rights and of every other 
reform to protect the individual against oppression, 
and to perfect him to the utmost in his mind, body, 
and estate. Every drop of true American blood 
carries latent within it the seed of these ideals; 
when it is otherwise, the American Republic will 
cease to be, and despotism in one of its monstrous 
forms will take its place. 

This conviction underlies Hay's international 
negotiations. Whatever business came up, he 
unconsciously or consciously judged it by its bear- 



JOHN HAY'S POLICY 107 

ing on the Great Friendship, which was his ideal. 
So far as England went, he had the friendly cooper- 
ation of the public men whom he had known there, 
and of Sir Julian Pauncefote, the British Ambassa- 
dor in Washington. Sir Julian was a diplomat of 
long training, with the manners of a man of the 
world, courtly, reserved rather than effusive, and 
accessible to those stimuli which touch the gene- 
rosity or the sportsmanlike instincts of the best 
Britons. Personally, Hay and he worked together 
in the happiest accord. Each felt that the other 
was an honourable gentleman, and so trusted him. 

I pass over many of the smaller affairs which 
they had to attend to together; and I come to a 
matter of the first importance — the negotiation of 
the Panama Canal Treaty. 

To connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans by a 
canal had been the dream of visionaries long before 
the tools and apparatus existed for carrying out 
such a project. The obvious convenience a canal 
would afford to commerce required no argument. 
As soon as the United States became a World 
Power, the need of a canal for naval and military 
purposes loomed up, and during the Spanish-Ameri- 
can War, when the battleship Oregon had to make 
the voyage from San Francisco round Cape Horn, 
everybody saw this need. In 1888 a French Com- 



108 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

pany which was excavating a canal at Panama 
went to pieces, and for more than ten years the 
enterprise lay dormant, although, in the interval, 
another company was formed to promote the route 
through Nicaragua. But our position in the world 
had now changed so radically, our wisest men 
insisted that wherever the canal were run it must 
belong to the United States. Before the question 
of ownership could be decided, however, England 
and the United States must come to an agreement; 
because in 1850 those countries had signed the 
Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, which gave them joint 
control and joint obligations over the Isthmus of 
Panama. Lord Salisbury, the British Prime Min- 
ister, declared his willingness to have the matter 
negotiated, and accordingly Secretary Hay and 
Ambassador Pauncefote set to work heartily. 

Hay saw in this transaction an opportunity not 
merely for forwarding a commercial plan of vast 
scope, but of welding the friendship between Eng- 
land and America. This, to him, was by far the 
most important aspect of the matter and if when 
the draft of the Treaty was published the terms 
seemed too unfavourable to the United States, this 
was owing to Secretary Hay's conviction that 
almost any concessions were worth making if they 
could lead to a solid and permanent bond between 



JOHN HAY'S POLICY 109 

the two nations. Nevertheless, the first Treaty 
was defeated by the Senate, and before the second 
Treaty had been discussed Pauncefote had died. 
From this second arrangement the objectionable 
features of the first were left out, and in their stead 
were incorporated the terms which Colonel Roose- 
velt, Senator Lodge, and others had urged through- 
out — including complete control as well as owner- 
ship of the Canal by the United States, and the 
right of our Government to fortify it. 

In all these negotiations Hay's Anglo-Saxonism, 
as we may call it, cropped out, and I suspect that 
he impressed it upon his British colleagues so 
that they, too, began to see in it more reason and 
significance than they had dreamed of. Always 
slow to readjust themselves to new political com- 
binations, the English did not for a long time ap- 
praise at its true value the rising menace of Ger- 
many. Tradition imposed on them the policy of 
splendid isolation from meddling with the affairs 
of continental Europe, except in so far as these 
might seem to threaten their supremacy in India. 
They supposed Russia to be their only dangerous 
European neighbour, and they therefore scarcely 
noted the rise in Europe of a Power which was pre- 
paring not only to dominate Europe, including 
Great Britain, but also to conquer the world. 



no VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

I would not claim that Secretary Hay recognized 
to the full the exorbitance of the German Kaiser's 
ambition; but he did see the direction which Ger- 
man schemes were taking, and he knew from his 
official dealings the methods of the German Gov- 
ernment. Their brutal seizure of Kiao-Chau and 
appropriation of Shan-Tung disgusted him. He 
abominated German Frightfulness as it was re- 
hearsed by Waldersee's troops after the Boxer 
Uprising in 1900. "At least we have been spared," 
Hay wrote privately to his friend, Mr. Henry 
Adams on November 21, 1900, "the infamy of an 
alliance with Germany; I would rather, I think, be 
the dupe of China than the chum of the Kaiser. 
Have you noticed how the world will take anything 
nowadays from a German? Billow said yesterday 
in substance — 'We have demanded of China every- 
thing we can think of. If we think of anything 

else we will demand that, and be d d to you' — 

and not a man in the world kicks." 

Like the rest of the world in those days, Hay 
sometimes took the preposterous Teutonic pro- 
jects somewhat derisively, as the phantasmagoria 
of a megolomaniac prince, who inherited the Ho- 
henzollern taint of insanity and resorted to any 
means for advertising himself. Even when put 
forth by the slick and wily Bulow, these schemes 



JOHN HAY'S POLICY in 

failed to convince. And yet Hay, witnessing Ger- 
man expansion in many parts of the world, did 
not fail to ask himself what influence could in the 
long run successfully compete with, if not actually 
overthrow, the Pan-German power. Himself a 
confirmed Democrat, he understood the defects of 
Democracy, and I think it not too much to assert 
that he foresaw the danger which Democracy 
would run in any conflicts with a disciplined mili- 
tarist autocracy. 

Such pondering led him to regard an Anglo- 
Saxon union — not necessarily based on official com- 
pacts, but rooted in the ideals of a common race — 
as the world's only safeguard against Teutonic 
domination. This conviction caused him to regret 
the differences which sprang up between the English 
Foreign Office and Washington, in the settlement 
of the Alaska Boundary, in the dispute over New- 
foundland fisheries, and in several other affairs of 
secondary moment. As he knew how ticklish diplo- 
macy is, so he wished to avoid even the most fleeting 
annoyances. In the main the two countries acted 
most cordially toward each other to the end. Once, 
however, British policy with Germany flew off at a 
tangent, and perplexed Hay greatly. The British 
Foreign Office has not yet explained this aberration 
publicly, and so it is not for me to disclose it. 



H2 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

In President Roosevelt, Secretary Hay had a 
strong collaborator, from the year 1901 on. The 
President was the clearer in seeing America's ad- 
vantages. He had understood also, quite as early 
as Hay did, the implications of the Monroe Doc- 
trine and the new needs and obligations which the 
position of World Power thrust upon the United 
States. Nor did he fear hurting England's feelings, 
when he believed that his demands were just. It 
was Roosevelt, and not Hay, who brought to a 
prompt and satisfactory conclusion negotiations 
which had dragged on too long. Thus he hastened 
the solution of the Alaskan Boundary dispute by 
writing a private letter to an American judge, 
travelling abroad, whom he asked to show it (in- 
discreetly of course) to Mr. Chamberlain and 
other English statesmen. Whoever read that 
letter could have no doubt that the dispute must 
be settled at once, and settled in conformity 
with American rights. 

So also it was the President who detached Eng- 
land from her partnership with Germany in block- 
ading Venezuela, and he it was who then forced the 
German Emperor to arbitrate his quarrel with 
Venezuela, unless he preferred to fight. Probably 
it would have been better for the peace and welfare 
pf mankind if William II had decided to fight then, 



JOHN HAY'S POLICY 113 

because he was certain to have been beaten; but 
he was too wary to risk plunging the world into 
war until he knew that Germany was wholly pre- 
pared, and supposed that his unsuspecting neigh- 
bours would be easy victims. The upshot of the 
Venezuela transaction was that the United States 
Government proved itself determined to defend 
the Monroe Doctrine against all comers, and that 
Germany having failed to land troops on American 
soil relied thereafter on craft instead of on force 
for her conquest of the American Continent. 

That John Hay was right in thinking that our 
people must face the future hand in hand with the 
people of the British Empire, or that the civiliza- 
tion from which both spring and by which both 
live would go down, had been demonstrated years 
before he died. Long before the Atrocious War, 
German officers at their public banquets drank 
their toast to "The Day" — "the day" when they 
should destroy the British Fleet and, by controlling 
British sea power, control the world. Years before 
Hay died German professors were conducting their 
sly and despicable propaganda from Harvard and 
other American universities, and hordes of other 
tools of the Kaiser were at work honeycombing 
this country with deceit, falsehood, and sedition 
to make smooth his path here. 



n 4 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

Hay's belief in Anglo-Saxonism, his diplomacy 
which assumed that British and American friend- 
ship is indispensable, and his own character, 
with its staunchness and urbanity, making friendly 
dealings natural, were and will remain among the 
noteworthy factors in our national life. His at- 
titude was prophetic. 

The war has taught us that there is in Central 
Europe a strong and populous nation which does not 
believe in individual rights — that it does not believe 
in any right, any duty, any pledge, any obligation 
toward other peoples; that war is the normal state 
of man; that the purpose of an army is to devastate 
and conquer neighbouring countries and to carry 
away all the portable wealth, as the footpad holds 
up and robs his victim of his watch and purse. 

This nation repudiates the claims of chivalry and 
of mercy, and even more damning than its cruelty 
is its deceit. At the head of this nation stands an 
irresponsible autocrat who boasts that he grasps 
in the hollow of his hand the mind, body, and soul 
of every creature in his empire and whose bidding 
is done by generals, admirals, parsons, and profes- 
sors of his own appointing. This is the nation 
that enslaves and carries away the conquered 
young men and young women to suffer privations, 
shame, and unspeakable outrage. 



JOHN HAY'S POLICY 115 

Anglo-Saxonism denies the Autocrat and his 
system. Freedom is its pole-star. It proclaims 
the right of every human being to life and oppor- 
tunity; and as it broadens the scope of every in- 
dividual so it expects from him in return a keener 
sense of public duty. The nations which have 
been inspired by the Anglo-Saxon ideal may have 
committed many grievous sins, but they have 
never sunk to the lowest sin of all — that of embrac- 
ing the Teutonic ideal. We call Justice, Mercy, 
Veracity, Honour, and Reverence for one's plighted 
word Anglo-Saxon ideals, because during a thou- 
sand years they have been embodied in the Anglo- 
Saxon peoples, and in spite of all shortcomings 
they have shaped, little by little, the political and 
social life of those peoples. But they are no more 
a monopoly of the Anglo-Saxons than is the mul- 
tiplication table; they belong to whomsoever be- 
lieves in them and makes them his guide. 

The final product of autocracy is to convert 
man into a machine; the final product of democracy 
is to set free the soul in even the most clod-like 
man. For John Hay — and for whomsoever believes 
as he did in democracy — Abraham Lincoln and not 
Frederick the Great, much less William II, typifies 
the true guardian of civilization; the leader of 
mankind to a higher state than it has ever attained. 



n6 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

In 1900, during the Boer War, John Hay wrote 
to Senator Lodge deploring the apparent decadence 
of England as a fighting nation, and he added that 
if England went down and Germany and Russia 
made an arrangement — which the German Emperor 
was then plotting secretly to do — the balance 
would be lost for ages. Coming just at the ap- 
proach of a crisis to civilization more definite than 
any other in history, Hay distinguished clearly 
between the partisans of Moloch and the partisans 
of Christ, and he did his utmost to promote the 
cause of Christ. For this, posterity will always 
hold him in gratitude; for this he will rank among 
the American statesmen whose fame lives after 
them. 



BEWARE OF A JUDAS PEACE 1 

THE fact cannot be too often remembered that 
though the Prussianized Germans have had 
the reputation of being the master war makers of 
the modern age they have in the atrocious conflict 
which they forced upon the world in August, 1914, 
won more by deceit than by arms. This will 
probably astonish posterity more than it seems 
to astonish us. If we discovered that the cham- 
pion prize fighter had conquered his adversaries 
by low trickery — by poisoning their food, let us 
say, or by tripping them up, or by throwing 
pepper in their eyes — instead of by fair fight- 
ing, we should know how to rate him. Indeed, 
no bruiser could win the championship by such 
means; for in the ring there is an etiquette that 
forbids striking below the belt, and the contestant 
who disobeys is ruled out. The German war 
code, however, recognizes no etiquette; the Prus- 
sians, deaf alike to shame and to honour, permit 
themselves every license and refrain from no 

'•Saturday Evening Post, February 16, 1918. 

117 



n8 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

inhumanity. They boast of making "Anything 
to win" their motto. 

It is not by accident that the Prussian, who has 
been for a century the bully of Europe, is also the 
chief sneak among modern peoples. The bully 
is usually a coward, and sneaking is the coward's 
natural practice. We have already heard more than 
once from the Prussians the cowardly whimper 
when the Allies retaliated by inflicting on them the 
punishment they had exulted in applying first to the 
Allies. The submarine — unlawfully used, the most 
.despicable weapon ever employed by man — fitly 
symbolizes the modern German at war; its very 
essence is deceit. The nation that stoops to employ 
such a weapon illegitimately will, as a matter of 
course, shrink from no other practice of deceit — or 
of cruelty; and so we find, as I just now asserted, 
that the Germans have thus far won more by 
deceit than by arms. 

Look at the situation at the end of 1917, after 
the war has been carried on for three years and a 
half. What has been Germany's really important 
conquest in this struggle? It has been Russia. 
And how has she conquered Russia? Not by war- 
fare, but by corruption. In the beginning the 
Russian armies, though inferior to the German in 
military fitness and in morale, had the upper hand 



BEWARE OF A JUDAS PEACE 119 

in East Prussia. Then a sort of paralysis seemed 
to blight them, and the German generals, who had 
retreated from them at the start, overwhelmed 
them at the Masurian Lakes. 

Subsequently we have learned that this paraly- 
sis, which became chronic, was caused by treachery, 
and treachery was caused by German bribes. The 
extent to which this agency was carried may 
never be known, but enough is surely known to 
blacken forever the German record. The Kaiser's 
bribers, acting like the germs of a disease which 
slowly infects a people and destroys not only their 
physical vigour but their moral health, penetrated 
into every part of Russian society. The chief 
advisers of the Czar, the very members of his 
household, his ministers, his generals, admirals, 
and subalterns, were all polluted by Prussian gold 
or by Prussian guile. Industry and trade were 
stealthily Prussianized. German capital flowed 
like a pestilent stream through the main channels 
of banking and commerce. Western Russia was 
covertly overrun by German colonists, and even a 
great manufacturing city like Lodz, "the Russian 
Manchester," sprang up under the spell of Teu- 
tonic promotion. 

The result of this general peaceful penetration, 
as the Germans slyly called it, of Russia appeared 



120 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

in the second campaign of the war. The Russian 
armies in the early spring of 191 5 made a great 
drive into Galicia; they took Przemysl and other 
strongholds, and, with high hopes but much im- 
prudence, they rushed on through the Carpathian 
passes into Hungary. The Austrians seemed on 
the point of collapsing when Germany sent Mack- 
ensen to save them. This he did not so much by 
the powerful forces with which he battered the 
Russians as through their deficiency in ammuni- 
tion. In less than two months the Germans had 
disposed of Russia for that year. 

In 1916 the Russians made another promising 
start. Then there followed the inevitable slowing 
up, unexplained at the time and puzzling to out- 
side observers; and finally there was another 
disaster. It has since leaked out that from the 
beginning of the war the checks, the delays, and 
the failures were owing directly to Russian officials, 
corrupted by the Kaiser's reptilian creatures. 
Large appropriations were made for uniforms, 
rations, munitions, and means of transportation; 
but the armies in the field were often left without 
food or powder; trainloads of shells were sent off 
to some distant place and sidetracked; regiments 
actually went to the front without rifles and with- 
out uniforms — to be armed and clothed, if at all, 



BEWARE OF A JUDAS PEACE 121 

with the guns and uniforms of the men killed in 
action. 

The largest munition factory in the Empire 
was blown up, with the connivance, it is said, of 
Germans connected with it. The wonder is that 
really able military commanders, like the Grand 
Duke Nicholas and General Brusiloff, held out as 
long as they did and proved that even amid the 
uncertainty of feeding and equipping their armies 
they could confront the Teutons opposed to them. 
Only when there were no more cartridges for the 
rifles and no more shells for the cannon did they 
give way; and even in the retreat they showed 
their skill by saving their armies. 

The German corrupters were not satisfied, how- 
ever, with paralyzing the fighting power of Russia. 
A victory in the field tickled the vanity of the 
war-mad Germans at home, but it really concluded 
nothing; for if the Russian armies held together 
they might go on retreating as fast as the Germans 
caught up with them, and so entice the enemy 
far enough from his base to work his destruction. 
Their ancestors had successfully used that strategy 
against Napoleon in 18 12, and the Germans had no 
intention of being entrapped by it. They there- 
fore set about corrupting the Russian people, who 
furnished the material for the Russian armies. 



122 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

By the autumn of 1916 they felt so sure of their 
results that they declared very confidently that 
Russia would be out of it by the spring of 1917. 
How far the deposition of the Czar entered into 
their plan and how far they abetted and directed 
it we cannot yet say. 

It may be argued that the Czar himself had been 
so compliant up to that time, and his ministers and 
other officials had so punctually betrayed Russia 
and the Russian armies according to the bargain 
made with German agents, that the Kaiser might 
have thought it superfluous to oust his "dear 
cousin Nicky." A man does not need to be the 
Kaiser in order to perceive that the autocrat who 
conspires to destroy a brother autocrat engages 
in a risky business, since he teaches how any 
autocracy — including his own — may be abolished. 
On the other hand, the utter subserviency to 
Germany of the leaders of the Bolsheviki, who have 
latterly dominated the Revolution, justifies the 
belief that the Kaiser did indeed instigate the 
downfall of the Czar and bought up the lowest 
dregs in Russia to accomplish the Revolution which 
swept away the Romanoff Dynasty in March, 
1917. 

Judging by the situation at the end of December, 
191 7, the Kaiser can declare that a corruption fund 



BEWARE OF A JUDAS PEACE 123 

was never spent more completely to the satisfac- 
tion of the corrupter than that which he distributed 
among the Bolsheviki. They did his bidding to 
the last scrape of shameless servility. Not only 
did they stop active military operations, but they 
abandoned even the semblance of carrying on the 
war; they disbanded the armies; they virtually 
invited the Germans to enter Russia to do what 
they pleased and to take what they would. Never 
before in all history has any group of men sunk to 
such a shameless depth of turpitude. 

Shameless? They have no notion of what 
shame is. History brands indelibly on its eternal 
scroll the names of detested traitors; but these 
men, insensible alike to loyalty and to patriotism, 
betray with no more remorse than is felt by the 
viper envenoming its innocent victims. A peddler 
would treat a bundle of rags with more considera- 
tion than they have shown in giving away their 
Mother Russia to her inveterate foe. 

The peace which, at the instigation of Berlin, 
they would palm off on the world is a Judas peace. 
Which is the more odious, the seducer or his victim ? 
The world long ago passed its verdict on this ques- 
tion. Depraved as the Bolsheviki are, the Prus- 
sian Kaiser and the underlings who only too 
thoroughly obeyed his instructions are still more 



i2 4 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

depraved. The world does not even yet sufficiently 
abhor the deceit of the Germans, which has been 
for more than a quarter of a century at work 
deliberately poisoning and debasing the people 
in those countries which the Kaiser and his evil 
ring had secretly resolved to conquer or control. 
They have studied the temperament of each 
victim and have applied to each the corrupter 
whom they believed most efficacious: A sancti- 
monious professor for unsuspecting, frank Ameri- 
cans of intelligence; imperial blandishments for 
American millionaires and toadies; mere vulgar 
money, even small change, for fellows of the baser 
sort. They find out the weak point, the vanity, 
the devil's lurking place in each, and there they 
sow the microbes of their depravity; there they 
undermine; there, if need be, they stab clan- 
destinely. The Kultur which the Germans boast 
of is the culture of bacteria which infect and destroy 
the soul. 

Eighty years ago, before the Prussian virus had 
infected German arteries, German poets and 
theorists amused themselves over the conundrum, 
"Is Germany Hamlet?" The present war has 
brought a true and terrible answer: "Germany 
is Judas." Let the world be not betrayed into 
perdition by its Judas peace-kiss. 



BEWARE OF A JUDAS PEACE 125 

Every war begets its own vocabulary. Camou- 
flage is the word which, specially employed by 
the French in this war, has passed into general use 
in all languages. It means, first of all, a disguise 
with intent to deceive. Along roads where their 
troops and supply trains had to pass within sight 
of the German guns the French scene-painters 
spread large screens of canvas on which they 
daubed landscapes or bushes and trees; or the 
French masked their batteries by heaping over 
them a tangle of leafy boughs; or perhaps they 
converted an innocent looking haystack into a 
sentinel's shelter. All the belligerents employed 
the device; but it was the Germans who earliest 
and most persistently adopted camouflage to hide 
their political and moral weapons. 

At first they used it rather clumsily. Re- 
member how, for instance, they wished to make us 
believe, three years ago, that Prussian militarism 
was not, after all, a whit worse than British naval- 
ism. Even now they repeat, parrot-like, the 
phrase "freedom of the seas"; which has an 
impressive sound, particularly for the nine persons 
out of ten who have never taken the trouble to 
think what it means. The facts that, ever since 
the foundation of the German Empire, German 
ships have gone unimpeded all over the world, 



i 2 6 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

German commerce has increased at a much larger 
ratio than that of any other nation, and German 
products have been freely landed at every port — 
including every British port in both hemispheres — 
prove that the German pretense that the seas are 
not free to her are utterly hollow. 

Not less awkward were the Germans in their 
outcry against the sale by Americans of munitions 
and supplies. Camouflage, pure camouflage, very 
unskillfully applied, was all that; and it had that 
touch of effrontery which marks Prussian dealings. 
International law not only permitted but legalized 
such traffic; the Prussian Krupp works had done a 
thriving business for generations in selling their 
guns and shells to every belligerent who ordered; 
of course, also the Germans would greedily have 
taken all that we would have sent if it could have 
reached them. They had no qualms against 
accepting the copper, cotton, and other materials 
of war which they could smuggle through Switzer- 
land, Holland, and Denmark — those buffer states 
which served as a lifebelt for Germany, preventing 
her from perishing by a blockade. 

And then there was the camouflage about the 
blockade itself — the cruelty of starving non- 
belligerent children and women. As if the Ger- 
mans had not used the blockade where it was 



BEWARE OF A JUDAS PEACE 127 

feasible in every war they had fought and as if 
they, the Huns of the modern world, had shown 
any mercy to defenseless women and children when 
they first violated the Belgian frontier! Camou- 
flage? That is too highsounding a name, too re- 
spectable for such transparent humbug. 

And what but humbug was the whimper over 
milk for German babies? We were told that a 
German submarine was coming over to take home 
a cargo of powdered milk; but when the submarine 
did come it loaded all the rubber and nickel it 
could carry and sailed off with those instead. 

Some persons who declare that many new 
phrases merely mask old things or old doings 
which are sufficiently described by old familiar 
names will perhaps insist that "camouflage" is a 
new-fangled word, not needed for these German per- 
formances, which are quite accurately described by 
the unambiguous "lie" or the ancient "hypocrisy." 

We must not flatter ourselves that these and 
similar German falsehoods are so thin that every- 
body can see through them and so prevent them 
from doing the harm intended. We have all heard 
befogged or seduced persons arguing in behalf of 
the German contentions; and it was wonderful 
how many editorial writers found much to say on 
that side — wonderful, until the list of some of the 



128 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

newspapers subsidized by German gold was dis- 
covered and published. Almost anybody whose 
memory dates from more than two years back 
can remember how, between the crashing of one 
tornado and another across the prairies, there 
came a roar of words from the Middle West, and 
we learned that the Boy Orator of the Platte was 
pouring forth orations to commend the Kaiser's 
dreams. And did not the New York papers print 
long lists of subscriptions to the German babies' 
milk fund? Where is the money now? And is 
the percentage of American sanity so high that 
not a single American repeated the damnable 
German argument that it was right to sink the 
Lusitania, and with it about twelve hundred 
non-combatant women and children and neutral 
men, because they said she was loaded with arms 
which would kill German troops in battle? 

These and other essays in deceit pale, however, 
before the great German camouflage — the camou- 
flage of Peace. To the reasoning eye this seems 
so absurd as not to be worth resorting to, except 
on the theory that everybody requires a certain 
interlude of farce amid the serious business of life. 
Abraham Lincoln, burdened with the destiny of 
democracy in America, read Artemus Ward's 
funny sketches at his cabinet meetings. The 



BEWARE OF A JUDAS PEACE 129 

German farceurs have no idea that they are funny; 
on the contrary, they are dead in earnest and expect 
to be taken so. They know, as we all do, that 
words have a hypnotic effect and that by repeating 
them often enough the effect can be attained. 
There comes a time in the course of a long war 
when the armies in the field and the nations behind 
the armies grow weary, and then if the word 
" Peace" be repeated in their ears they begin to 
forget the obstacles in the way of Peace — to regard 
it as more important than anything else on earth — 
and to demand that it be given to them im- 
mediately. What matter terms when the thing 
itself is so supremely precious ? Why bicker over 
this or that detail? Peace will take care of all 
details. 

To rely upon an appeal to mob spirit — for that 
is what the Germans really do with their peace 
camouflage — is often dangerous; because peoples, 
like individuals, are most comfortably and safely 
dealt with through their reason. If you make a 
man hysterical in order to get something out of 
him which he would refuse in his normal state, he 
may act quite differently from what you plan. 
Hysteria, like fire, may be easily caused, but it is 
hard to check, hard to quench, and very hard to 
direct. And in this case the Kaiser and his ring 



i 3 o VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

would not clutch at so questionable a weapon as 
international hypnotism unless they felt sure that 
the Germans themselves would not fall victims to 
it. The Kaiser plotted the dissolution of Russia 
through the infamous agency of the Bolsheviki, 
but he did not for a moment intend or expect that 
his German Bolsheviki at home should follow this 
example and dissolve Imperial Germany — autocrat, 
Junkers, servants of frightfulness, and all. 

The Kaiser's first gesture in his peace move was 
directed toward the German nation. In the middle 
of 1916 he informed his obsequious subjects, and 
incidentally the world, that Germany had won the 
war, and that only the wickedness of his enemies 
prevented them from perceiving that they were 
beaten. For some reason beyond the reach of 
German psychology they persisted in keeping up 
the fight just as if they had not already lost it, and 
even after they had heard the Kaiser's gracious 
announcement they went on with redoubled efforts. 
What the docile German — who accepts the Kaiser's 
utterances as the sum of all law, gospel, and 
science — thought of this we cannot surmise. 

If you are wrestling with a man and he throws 
you, but you both grapple so fiercely that neither 
can break loose, how much heed do you pay to him 
when he whispers frantically "Stop! You're 



BEWARE OF A JUDAS PEACE 131 

dead !" ? In previous wars the Germans had taken 
care that their enemies were in fact dead before 
they issued their bulletins of victory. How much 
satisfaction the German nation derived from the 
Kaiser's false statements does not appear, but it 
has swallowed so many other lies that it probably 
relished this. Did it not exult with proper zeal 
when the Kaiser announced, after his fleet had 
scuttled off out of range of the British guns at the 
Battle of Jutland, that he was Lord High Admiral 
of the Atlantic? 

The Allies, however, though they have made 
many mistakes, have never supposed that the war 
could be won by talk, and they had an irreverent 
sense of humour which left them unmoved by the 
Kaiser's bombast. It happened, also, that the 
summer of 1916 was particularly unfavourable 
for any assertion of German invincibility; because 
since February in that year the Germans had hurled 
immense masses of their best men, supported by 
such a strength of artillery as had never until then 
been assembled, in an effort to take Verdun. 
Month after month the barbarians battered; 
month after month the French held firm. Even 
the consideration that Verdun was needed in order 
to establish the military glory of the despised 
German Crown Prince failed to stir the traditionally 



132 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

polite Frenchmen to give way. If the skulls 
of the multitude of Germans butchered there to 
make the Crown Prince's holiday had been built in 
a pyramid, its top would have surpassed the highest 
of the hills which guarded the wrecked city. One 
wonders whether the parents of each of these 
victims of Hohenzollern ambition were really 
cheated by the Kaiser's bluff. 

Nevertheless, in the autumn, thanks to treachery 
which paralyzed the Rumanians, the Germans 
could plume themselves on a spectacular success 
in the southeast, and the Kaiser seized the occasion 
for making a formal offer of peace to his enemies. 
He wished to do so not merely as an act of grace 
but in order to show his love of peace itself, and of 
humanity, and of good will. It was much as if the 
head master of a school should offer to forgive and 
take back a band of obstreperous boys who had 
rebelled and run away — boys who were to be 
pitied for not realizing that the master was om- 
nipotent and that they were very silly in imagining 
that they could successfully defy his power. The 
Kaiser intimated that if the Allies refused his 
terms he would fight until they had nothing to 
expect from him except a demand for their absolute 
surrender. Perverse that they were, instead of 
thanking him they rather inclined to make merry 



BEWARE OF A JUDAS PEACE 133 

over his pomposity, and though they felt acutely 
the Rumanian breakdown they simply prepared to 
wage the war more resolutely. 

Did the Kaiser expect that his offer at Christmas, 
1916, would be accepted? Hardly. ... He 
was merely indulging in camouflage. Friends and 
foes alike had come to think of Germany as a nation 
of soldiers; that it was bent on destroying France, 
on smashing England, and with it the Imperial 
British sea power which stood impregnably between 
the German dream of world empire and its realiza- 
tion. Even quiet peoples, Americans in both 
hemispheres for instance, regarded German mili- 
tarism with alarm, and it was clear that they, too, 
might rise up and join the crusade against the Hun. 
How could the Kaiser more naturally allay alarm 
and divert attention from his real purpose than 
by his camouflage, which depicted him first as a 
lover of peace, and hinted next that he had no 
intention of exacting the ruin of any of his enemies, 
or of demanding indemnities, or even of keeping 
the foreign territory his armies had occupied? 

Peace, evermore peace, that was his watchword, 
that was the suggestion by which he schemed to 
hypnotize an unwary world. If the peoples could 
be brought to think of him, not as an ogre who 
delighted in blood and havoc, but as the benevolent 



134 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

autocrat who yearned to see his enemies beat their 
swords into plowshares, he would take a long stride 
toward securing his ends. He did not hesitate to 
turn against the Allies the very words they had 
applied to him. They were war-mad conquerors; 
they were swollen with ambition; they were so 
fired by war lust that they could not be appeased 
except by destroying Germany and devouring her 
peace-loving folk. 

Very pretty disavowals and surprising insinua- 
tions! But methinks the Kaiser did protest too 
much. What was his plot? What did his cam- 
ouflage hide with intent to deceive? His secret 
purpose has been dissected with a surgeon's skill 
and dispassionateness by M. Andre Cheradame, 
and I will content myself here with only an outline 
of his conclusions. 

During the long years in which Germany slowly 
matured her wicked plot against civilization she 
came to see that she might achieve world power 
in one of two ways : First, she might by a sudden 
spring overthrow and annihilate France, and then 
by turning swiftly to the east she might break 
down Russia. These two strokes would leave 
her mistress of Europe; but in order to secure and 
complete her supremacy she must defeat England, 
and this she counted on doing in a very few years 



BEWARE OF A JUDAS PEACE 135 

after she had defeated the Continental Powers. 
Her second choice was embodied in her Middle 
Europe scheme, by which she meant to control 
Austria, the Balkans, and Turkey on both sides 
of the Bosphorus, and to push her dominion 
through Asia Minor and down to Bagdad in Persia. 

Her Middle Europe project might be attained, 
it will be observed, without going to war at all; 
it required only friendly relations of "the most- 
favoured-nation" sort between Germany and the 
countries which lay to the south of her, from 
Austria to Persia. She would build railroads 
connecting Hamburg and Bagdad, over which 
her products should be sent to vast populations. 
Germans would colonize the rich lands in Anatolia 
and Mesopotamia, and carry out the process of 
peaceful penetration in which they had proved 
themselves experts. The only impediment in the 
way of her triumphal progress was Serbia, through 
which her route had to pass before she could reach 
Turkey. 

Such were her two plans. The first appealed 
to the piratical inheritance of the Hohenzollerns 
and to the common German appetite for war. The 
second appealed to the German instinct of cupidity, 
to the desire to extend her commerce and to in- 
crease her wealth — that instinct embodied in Bal- 



136 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

lin and the other German captains of industry 
who pursue financial gain as ruthlessly as the 
German General Staff conducts war. 

When the Kaiser forced war upon the world in 
August, 1914, he expected to accomplish his first 
plan. But the brave Belgians at Liege checked 
the momentum of his drive, and Joffre — sublime 
in patience, foresight, and courage — shattered 
that plan forever in the Battle of the Marne. The 
German war logically ended there. The Kaiser 
had been defeated, but though his plan had 
collapsed he believed that he could wear France 
down by slow fighting before the English could 
prepare an army adequate in size and drill to come 
to her assistance; and he approved of the un- 
speakably horrible raid into Serbia and of the 
campaigns against the Slavs on the east. He 
knew — and there is no excuse why everybody in 
the world should not have known for three years 
past — that the vital point where the conflict must 
be decided was in Flanders and eastern France. 
He tried unsuccessfully to sweep through Flanders 
to Calais while only small forces of English held 
that section. He tried most desperately again 
and again to inundate the French at Verdun before 
the great English army had crossed the Channel, 
but he failed. The upshot of all his campaigning 



BEWARE OF A JUDAS PEACE 137 

in the west for nearly two years past was the slow 
withdrawal of the German army, unable even in 
its amazingly fortified defenses to stand up before 
the Tommies of England and the poilus of France 
with their unmatched artillery. 

Having devastated Serbia and Montenegro; 
having overrun and devastated Rumania; having 
occupied, partly through military operations and 
more through deceit, most of western Russia, the 
Middle Europe scheme loomed up most seductively 
before the eyes of the Kaiser and his war ring. He 
held nearly all the elements of its realization in 
his hands. Austria, Bulgaria, Turkey, were simply 
his vassals; Serbia was powerless to block his path; 
he had abetted the massacre of hundreds of 
thousands of Armenians whereby he whetted the 
Turks' bloodthirstiness; above all, his enemies, 
the Western Allies, could not strike him at any 
vital point along the Berlin-to-Bagdad line. Eng- 
land had taken Bagdad, to be sure, but her hold 
on it would be precarious when the Middle Europe 
project was organized. 

So the Kaiser strutted before the world at 
Christmastide, 1916, as a prince of peace graciously 
disposed to stop the war on the general terms of 
no annexations and no indemnities. A few silly 
persons exclaimed: "What a kind soul he is! How 



138 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

generous!'' Those who were not dulled by words, 
least of all by words sodden in German deceit, 
saw at once, however, that if the Kaiser could get 
peace on those terms he would get also Germany's 
second choice, the Middle Europe enterprise. 
That would mean that the German Empire, con- 
trolling its vassals — Austria, Bulgaria, and the 
Turkish Empire — would number 170,000,000 in- 
habitants, from whom it could conscript a standing 
army of 20,000,000 soldiers. It would have naval 
control of the Black Sea and the Adriatic, and 
of Constantinople, the veritable metropolis where 
all roads and all commerce from north and south 
and east and west meet. 

Compared with such a reservoir of wealth and 
power, the acquisition of Belgium seemed paltry 
indeed. Germany had levied immense sums on 
the towns and provinces stricken by her in Belgium, 
France, and Russia. She had wrought incalculable 
damage by the ruin of buildings and property, and 
now she proposed to grant peace without in- 
demnities — without, that is, paying back one 
pfennig of all the billions of marks that she owed 
for damages which could be paid for! Generous 
indeed! 

In brief, for the Allies to accept these terms 
would imply that their struggle for democracy, 



BEWARE OF A JUDAS PEACE 139 

for international justice, and for the rights of small 
nations, had failed. It would leave the German 
Empire immeasurably stronger than it had been 
in 1914. It would be tantamount to admitting 
that imperial piracy on the largest scale had 
succeeded. It would bring no durable peace, 
but would surely leave Germany in a position to 
renew war at any time, with the assurance of 
victory and of world dominion, whenever she 
chose. 

No genuine desirer of peace could for a moment 
think of accepting these terms. 

Let us put the German story in another form 
so as to bring out more saliently its moral: 

Many years ago there lived in the mountains 
of South Germany a family of robbers. They 
were called the Hohenzollerns — "the high-toll 
takers'* — because they had their lair high up 
above a pass from which they could discover the 
pack trains and the single travellers toiling up 
the slope on either side and could swoop down and 
levy whatever toll they chose on the strangers. 
Thus by piracy they grew rich, and centuries 
later they went down into the plain and by fighting 
or by marriage they acquired much territory. 

The instinct for plunder persisted in the Hohen- 
zollern family, but instead of robbing small parties 



i 4 o VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

of itinerant merchants or solitary chapmen in the 
old mountain pass, they now stole provinces and 
states. They organized Prussia, their own state, 
to be a wonderful agency for national piracy. 
They looked over the other German states, dis- 
united and lumberingly inefficient, and saw that if 
Prussia could dominate them she could make of 
them, under her leadership, a pirate empire of the 
first magnitude. 

To do this, however, required some tact, for 
Austria, controlled by the German House of 
Hapsburg, also aspired to dominate the German 
peoples. So Prussia artfully wheedled Austria 
into joining her in robbing Denmark of nearly half 
her land; and then she picked a quarrel with 
Austria, defeated her, and stood out before the 
world as the paramount German Power. 

To weld the separate elements into a single 
empire required one more war. This she easily 
contrived against France, and by persuading her 
German neighbours that the French were really 
bent on whipping Germany she secured them all 
as allies and with them whipped France. The 
German Empire thus united was bound together 
by the iron cables of Prussia; and was not merely 
bound together but, before long, it was Prus- 
sianized. 



BEWARE OF A JUDAS PEACE 141 

The instinct for piracy seems to be innate in the 
German temperament; at any rate, the Prussians 
soon succeeded in kindling it in Teutons of every 
tribe. There used to be a pleasant tradition that 
the South Germans and the Rhinelanders were 
gentle, honest people, quite unlike the Prussians, 
but this fallacy will never fool any one again. 
During the present war the Bavarians have 
equalled the Prussians in atrocity, and have 
gloated over it. Before the war all classes of 
Germans, from swaggering Junkers to grovelling 
bootblacks and professors, had embraced piracy 
as their national ideal. 

President Wilson and a good many other Ameri- 
cans have thought they saw a generic difference 
between the Kaiser and the German people; they 
even hinted that the German people would secretly 
welcome any foreigner that would release them 
from their bondage to the Kaiser. To picture 
Germany as Andromeda, living at the mercy of 
the Hohenzollern monster and waiting for a possible 
Perseus to rescue her, does credit to the poetic per- 
sons who cherish it, but it betrays their absolute 
blindness to fact; for there is no more difference 
between the Kaiser and the Germans than be- 
tween tweedledum and tweedledee. Happily, the 
recent utterances of President Wilson and of 



142 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

Premier Lloyd George indicate that they are not 
misled by specious lines of distinction. 

Piracy pays! That motto, adopted long since 
in act by the Prussians, was accepted without 
demur by the Germans; and in order to prove 
its truth they needed only to follow the course 
of German expansion from the modest days of 
high toll taking in the south to the Babylonian 
pomps of imperial Berlin in the north. We must 
not do the Germans the injustice, therefore, to infer 
that they have had any scruples against going 
into the present war. Why should they? They 
knew that Germany had the largest army in history 
and they counted on its winning the largest spoils. 
When victory was delayed, owing to the impolite- 
ness of the Allies, they were told by their finance 
minister not to worry, because the longer the delay 
the richer would be the booty; and he cheered them 
by assuring them that the Allies would have to pay 
indemnities which would make every German, and 
his children's children, rich. 

Still there was a hitch, and, what was more, not 
merely higher taxes and heavier burdens and 
mourning for dead Boches in every household, 
but an inconsiderate gnawing at the stomach — that 
vulgar and unpatriotic organ which refused to be ap- 
peased by the Kaiser's promises of incalculable loot. 



BEWARE OF A JUDAS PEACE 143 

In his desperation the Kaiser — blocked from 
military victory on the western front, where alone 
it would have real value — turned to the Middle 
Europe alternative. To secure that he needed only 
peace, not war, and that is why at Christmas, 191 7, 
he repeated his peace offer, but with more camou- 
flage and more suspicious provisos than in 1916. 

The statesmen of the Allies have treated this 
offer with the scorn which it merits, but the public 
is so gullible and the propaganda of the pro- 
Germans and the pacifists is so insidious and 
incessant that we are likely to hear voices raised 
in approval of it. War weariness counts for much; 
hypnotic influence of words, as I have already re- 
marked, counts for much also. 

But there never was a crisis when it was so 
vitally important that men should not mistake 
the shadow for the substance. Persons delude 
themselves into thinking that peace is a fixed 
condition; but to stop fighting now would not 
mean peace; it would merely give a truce to those 
powers of evil which remorselessly plunged the 
world into the present war, to prepare for another 
war whereby they might win what they have 
missed in this one, and dominate mankind. 

Peace can come only when the conditions of 
true peace are restored. Between 1871 and 1914 



i 4 4 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

Europe did not enjoy a true peace, because every 
day and every hour of those forty-three years 
Germany was equipping herself for the colossal 
piracy which she openly engaged in four years ago. 
Her European neighbours had dim forebodings 
of the day of Armageddon which loomed behind 
all the Prussian policies and military preparations. 

Reckoning merely by the sordid measure of 
money, it cost Europe at least a billion dollars a 
year, on the average, to keep up, even partially, 
armaments to match the German; and when the 
war ends and the great bill is made out to cover 
its direct tangible expenses, there must be added 
the $43,000,000,000 for the preliminary outlay 
Europe had to make to protect itself against the 
Hohenzollern ambition. There has never been 
anything in history for which men have paid so 
dear as that ambition-embodying German greed 
and German lust of power. 

And in return what has modern Germany given 
the world? Not one poem, not a single book of 
high and permanent inspiration, not a painting, 
not a statue, not even a musician worthy to rank 
with the German masters who wrote the world's 
music in the days before the poison of Prussianism 
blighted the German soul. 

Only when you look straight at the facts and 



BEWARE OF A JUDAS PEACE 145 

see the cause of the war will you understand how 
fatuous it is to babble of making peace so long 
as the champions of wrong are left intact. The 
struggle lies between two diametrically opposed 
and mutually destructive ideals of life; between 
autocracy (which believes that mankind are by 
nature — and, in fact, should be the chattels of 
a monarch who has absolute control over their 
life and conditions and can put them to death 
when he chooses) and democracy — (which believes 
that the humblest individual possesses a soul which 
he can best develop in liberty only, and that this 
principle of freedom shall prevail in the dealings 
of individuals with each other and in the political, 
religious, and social communities into which they 
group themselves). In its international relations 
"Live and let live" has been the rule of democracy; 
but autocracy does not willingly tolerate other 
forms of government, especially when those forms 
seem to be rivals. 

The autocrat who controls his own subjects 
absolutely must desire to extend his control over 
his neighbours; and nothing could be more dis- 
quieting to an autocrat than to have powerful 
democratic neighbours. They may not be even 
materially powerful; it is sufficient for them to 
waft abroad the principles of democracy, as flowers 



146 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

waft their fructifying pollen. If only a river 
divides the two nations, how can the sight of the 
democrats, who are masters of themselves, fail 
to put revolutionary thoughts into the minds of 
the autocrat's human chattels? Since 1871 Ger- 
many, following Bismarck's cue, pretended to 
feel contempt for the noisy, explosive, often 
discordant French democrats; but it was the 
example that, in spite of all shortcomings, France 
could maintain herself as a democracy which dis- 
quieted the despot at Berlin and made him desire 
the downfall of democratic France. 

And not of France only but of all democracies. 
During the past fifty years the spirit of democracy 
has gone into all lands and has been a political 
solvent in which many ancient despotisms have 
been loosened and transformed. Bismarck saw 
clearly that even Prussian autocracy would be 
consumed by it, though, as he said, the Germans 
are politically the most retrograde of European 
peoples and the most incapable of self-govern- 
ment. So he set about strengthening autocracy 
in Germany, his chief weapon being the extension 
of militarism. On the foundations he laid the 
present Kaiser built; and, so far as he could, he 
encoiled with his partnership the other chief 
despotisms, the sadly degenerate despotisms, of 



BEWARE OF A JUDAS PEACE 147 

Europe — Austria and Turkey. Bismarck taught 
that democracy, through lack of having its power 
unified under a single central control, could not 
compete with an autocracy. When, therefore, 
the German Kaiser deemed that everything was 
ready at home and that the internal conditions, 
including lack of military preparedness in France, 
England, Italy, and Russia, were most favourable 
for him, he sprang with tigerish swiftness and 
ferocity at the throat of Belgium and France. 

The slowly unfolding process of war has simply 
confirmed the fact that it is a life-and-death 
struggle between these two antagonistic principles. 
Autocracy, championed by the German Kaiser, 
has in its desperation abandoned civilized methods 
and ideals and has, indeed, been ready to destroy 
civilization itself rather than to let go its hold on 
power. It has accepted as its watchword Bern- 
hardi's alternative, "World dominion or down- 
fall"; it will tolerate no other form of government 
than its own; it recognizes no law, human or divine, 
except that which the Kaiser makes. 

What peace, what truce even, can be arranged 
with such an antagonist ? Where are any common 
terms for negotiation to be found? The timid, 
the tired, the doubting, the depressed, tell us that 
as things have reached a deadlock we must consent 



148 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

to compromise. In what religious creed is it 
taught that men are justified in compromising 
with evil ? Into what brave heart did the poison- 
ous thought ever glide that he might honourably 
lay down his arms before a stubborn and formidable 
enemy? In this conflict there can be no stopping 
until Prussian military autocracy, the most recent 
form in which Satan has panoplied himself, has 
been destroyed. Any peace which leaves that in- 
tact will usher in Prussian world dominion. 

It takes no very keen eyes to penetrate the 
deceit of the camouflage of the Kaiser's peace offer. 
If he were now all-victorious, as he alleges, would 
he make this offer — or any other? By no means. 
He would take, occupy, and despotize without 
any "by your leave." He pretends to be able 
to dictate to all the belligerents. What is the 
truth? His armies are farther off from Paris 
than they were a year ago; he has gained not a 
square inch of British territory for a foothold; 
and his futile air raids on England, having killed 
not above a thousand non-combatants, mostly 
women and children, have simply strengthened 
the resolve of the British to fight until the coward 
monster who resorts to such atrocities is slain. He 
has lost all his colonies. 

The Kaiser knows all this. He has known 



BEWARE OF A JUDAS PEACE 149 

since the Battle of the Marne that he was beaten 
in his original purpose. Why, then, does he exploit 
so flimsy and transparent a trick? He has several 
motives. In the first place, despairing of winning 
the war by a military decision, he seeks to win it by 
political corruption; and his success with the 
infamous Russian dregs encourages him to hope 
that he may disintegrate his other enemies by 
similar means. The American counterparts of 
the Bolsheviki are working persistently in America, 
as they are the local counterparts in other countries, 
though they do not necessarily speak Russian. 

So the Kaiser counts on them everywhere. 
What a stupendous hypocrisy it is, when you 
consider it, that the Kaiser, the complete autocrat, 
who has throughout his reign persecuted and 
wished to annihilate anarchists and socialists, 
should now turn to the venal members of both 
these sects to save him from destruction! How 
can he ever recover his prestige? The very ex- 
istence of the German Empire — of the autocracy 
which plots to dominate the world — depends, it 
appears, on the good will of these incendiaries. 
And how shall the party of revolution, which has 
protested for half a century that it could make 
no truce with German autocracy, regain its lost 
reputation after prostituting itself to organize 



ISO VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

the Socialist Congress at Stockholm and to ad- 
minister deadly poison to the Russians, at the 
Kaiser's suggestion? 

Another motive behind the peace offer is the 
desperate need of continuing to feed the German 
people with lies. From the outset this has been 
the Kaiser's favourite expedient. He knew their 
docility and it seemed as if he wished to put their 
gullibility to the test. They were told long ago 
that he had taken Paris, occupied London, sub- 
jugated England, and burnt Edinburgh. They 
were told that in the Battle of Jutland the German 
fleet had won the greatest naval victory of all 
time. They were told that we Americans were a 
wretched lot of cowards, who couldn't raise an 
army if we wished, and couldn't send one to Europe 
even if we raised it, on account of the submarines 
which controlled the Atlantic and were starving 
England into submission. 

A people which not only swallowed all these lies 
but smacked their lips in the process, naturally 
found it quite logical that their war lord, from his 
victorious height, should condescend to agree to 
allow his poor beaten enemies to stop fighting. 
To the German people, accordingly, the peace 
offer is another proof that they have won the war. 

The Kaiser has sneered at the participation of 



BEWARE OF A JUDAS PEACE 151 

the Americans in the war, just as he sneered at the 
British "Contemptibles," but he understands 
very well that the American troops are crossing 
regularly to France, and he wishes to get peace 
before their numbers, added to the armies of the 
Allies, shall vanquish Hindenburg on the western 
front. This is another reason. 

But the paramount reason for his frantic desire 
for peace is that if the war can be closed now he 
will realize his Middle-Europe dream, which will 
assure for him in a very few years the domination 
of the world. This is why his terms must not be 
considered for a moment. He slyly counts on any 
consideration of peace as a point in his favour. The 
temptation, which at first sight reveals itself in all its 
repulsiveness, may exert its seductive power over us 
if we give it time — "We first endure, then pity, then 
embrace. " This may be the effect that a bastard 
and deceitful peace-offer may work upon the Allies. 

We may pertinently inquire: What would be 
the preliminaries of such a peace? Whom could 
the Allies treat with? Not with the Kaiser, be- 
cause he is forsworn; his oath is worth nothing, 
whether he pledge himself as monarch or as man. 
Tirpitz, Hindenburg, and the imperial ring could 
not be trusted. They boast that they hold no 
word as sacred, and they are busy fabricating lies, 



1 52 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

plots, and conspiracies which they sow broadcast. 
Until German troops shall evacuate the territories 
they have seized, and shall disarm, it would be 
suicide, therefore, for the Allies to check their 
military operations, to withdraw their troops 
from any position, and much less to think of 
reducing their forces by a single man. 

Here is a practical difficulty which the Kaiser 
cannot have overlooked, but there is a moral 
consideration which cries out far more solemnly 
against the Kaiser's schemes. Every ally, every 
neutral, every man or woman with a sense of 
justice, must regard such a compact as a com- 
pounding with the most atrocious criminal in 
history. It would make us at least the extenuators 
of all the German crimes, of the outrages on women 
and children in Belgium and France, of the mas- 
sacres in Poland and Armenia, of the systematic 
starving of prisoners, of the deportation and enslav- 
ing of millions of non-combatants, of the deliberate 
ravaging of towns and countries and the destruc- 
tion of works of art, of the negation of the primal 
trust of man in man and of the spirit of mercy and 
justice without which civilization cannot endure. 
Who among all the Allies will take the odious, 
bloodstained hand of William of Hohenzollern in 
his and say "Let us be friends"? 



VI 

DESPOTISM BY THE DREGS 1 

THE dissolution of Russia, through the shame- 
ful action of the Bolsheviki, must have a 
salutary effect, which neither they nor the Ger- 
mans who corrupted them foresaw. It serves 
both as a warning and as an example. Years be- 
fore the Atrocious War began, sober observers 
believed that Western civilization was headed 
straight for a social revolution — a revolution 
which should be more thorough, more ruthless, 
more inexorable even than that of France in 
1789. 

At the opening of the French Revolution the 
great mass of the Third Estate, the peasants and 
labourers, and even the bourgeoisie, being without 
political rights, were still subservient to the priv- 
ileged classes, which numbered altogether only a 
few thousand individuals — who ruled them. Now, 
however, thanks to the spread of democracy as a 
political system during the past one hundred and 
twenty years, the very lowest classes, socially and 

^Saturday Evening Post, May 4, 191 8. 

153 



154 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

economically, enjoy in most countries the franchise; 
and even in despotic countries they have contrived 
to band together in labour unions and other 
organizations. 

The French Revolution of 1789 differed totally 
from the Russian Revolution of 191 7 in that it was 
launched by some of the best leaders in France, 
and that when it passed from their hands into the 
control of the Terrorists it was still led by men of 
unusual, if mistaken, intellectual force. Mirabeau, 
whose valiant words gave the keynote of the Revo- 
lution, was himself a noble and, what is far more 
important, was one of the very few transcendent 
statesmen of modern Europe; and Robespierre, 
the despot of the Terror, was an educated man, 
fanatical, narrow, hard as steel and unbending as 
flint. 

In Russia, however, though the Revolution 
seems to have been begun by reasonable men like 
Miliukoff, it slipped quickly down to Kerensky, 
the political tight-rope walker, and from him to 
the Bolsheviki, with their incredible despots, 
Lenine and Trotzky. Neither by training nor 
experience, nor by mental endowment, were these 
two sufficiently equipped to run even a dairy; and 
yet the world beheld them, for four months and 
over, directing the destiny of more than a hundred 



DESPOTISM BY THE DREGS 155 

and fifty million Russians, and incidentally affect- 
ing all the nations involved in the great war. 

It is because the Bolsheviki represent the lowest 
layer of Russian society — the very dregs, to be 
precise — that their experiment in despotism has 
far-reaching significance. I call them the dregs, 
not from any snobbish rating, but because that is 
a word which describes them. It is a pathetic 
and terrible fact that after civilization, as we know 
it, has been in progress for so many, many cen- 
turies, there should exist in Russia, or any other 
country regarded as civilized, a large body of the 
population lying stagnant at the Bolshevist level; 
and, more awful still, that by a sudden whirl of 
fortune they should be able to seize the reins of 
government and play the many-headed despot 
over the multitudinous millions of their country- 
men. 

The Russian dregs have superstition, but no 
religion. They have been taught for centuries 
to bow their heads low, a posture in which they 
cannot look their fellowmen face to face and eye 
to eye, much less look up and recognize a Power 
higher than that of man. So ignorant are they 
that they do not understand the simplest in- 
tellectual laws of life. They do not understand 
that a lasting government cannot be founded for 



156 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

the crude purpose of transferring into Bolshevik 
pockets all the dollars outside of them. 

"Behold, my son, with how little wisdom the 
world is governed !" Oxenstiern, the Swedish 
statesman, remarked three centuries ago; and, to 
the eye of pure reason, human governments have 
nearly always been run with a minimum of wisdom. 
Still, the Bolsheviki are the first to boast that 
ignorance, incompetence, and inexperience are 
the best equipment for those who attempt to 
govern a state. 

If we apply the Bolshevist doctrine in other fields 
we shall see at once its absurdity. In war, for 
instance, it would be equivalent to asserting that 
the bows and arrows and tomahawks of Iroquois 
Indians would be more effective weapons than 
howitzers and machine guns and seventy-fives are 
to-day; or, in transportation, that the ox cart, 
with its primitive wheels cut from the trunk of a 
large tree, with which the Russian muzhik trundles 
over the muddy Muscovite plains, is superior to the 
modern locomotive and its train of freight cars. 

During the period of reconstruction after our 
Civil War shortsighted politicians practised the 
Bolshevist method when they handed over the 
control of some of our Southern States to the 
negroes — persons, that is, who had had abso- 



DESPOTISM BY THE DREGS 157 

lutely no training in government and who had 
recently been actual slaves. We may attribute 
to them all the good intentions we wish; but the 
result was what it had to be. And that episode 
stands out now as one of the most disgraceful in 
our history. Years later a well-known aboli- 
tionist, a friend of mine, was talking the matter 
over with a sensible old darky who said: "Dose 
yere politicians up no'th tried to put ign'rance on 
top of 'telligence; but it wouldn't stay dar." 

It would be well if every Bolshevik in Russia, 
and those who think like him in all parts of the 
world, would adopt and ponder the old darky's 
wise words. You can put ignorance on top of 
intelligence, but it won't stay there. The mere 
fact of living in the twentieth century presup- 
poses a certain modicum of intelligence on the 
part of even the lowest. 

Formerly, before modern inventions had made 
the whole world one neighbourhood, life was really 
very simple. The village supported itself, raising 
its own food and other necessaries, and passing its 
day as monotonously as a bagpipe's drone; whereas 
now that village must be very remote which does 
not count among its villagers persons with intel- 
ligence enough to have relations with the great 
business of the country and to tap national chan- 



1 58 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

nels of distribution. We live at one or more 
removes from Nature, and we must know the 
machinery that connects us with life, or else we 
perish. And yet it is precisely at this time, when 
intelligence is the condition indispensable to our 
existence, that the Bolsheviki unfurl their banner 
of ignorance and propose to overturn society. 

If they ask us to repudiate the old Romanoff 
methods of unjust government we concur; but, 
because we repudiate the despotism of the Czar, 
we repudiate also the despotism of the dregs. 
Insist, if you will, that under the Czar's regime 
Russian society was so organized and governed 
that the lion's share of wealth went into the hands 
of the Czar, his court, their friends, and a limited 
privileged class of nobles and capitalists. Do the 
Bolsheviki offer a juster system, one in which 
equality and fraternity really prevail, one in which 
there is even a distant recognition of liberty? 
Far from it. The Bolsheviki do not even disguise 
their piratical motives; Czarism did. By its 
more sophisticated methods it hid its rapacity 
under economic and social subterfuges. The devil 
was not only the inventor of indirect taxation, 
by which a whole people can be fleeced for the 
benefit of a fraction, but he invented, also, most 
of the devices by which despotism oils its ma- 



DESPOTISM BY THE DREGS 159 

chinery. The Russian Bolsheviki are merciless 
to their enemies, to whom they acknowledge 
no obligations, no rights, and whom they intend 
to crush by force. Every person possessing a 
dollar is their enemy. 

Extremes meet. The German Empire, the 
most highly organized despotism, past or present, 
proclaims that no non-German has any rights 
which it respects; not even the right to live. And 
it denies that any moral law or regard for duty, 
or for humanity, or for justice, can bind a German 
in his dealings with non-Germans. This is exactly 
the doctrine preached by the Bolsheviki. 

Having wriggled themselves into power, the 
Bolsheviki bluntly announced that they would 
rule alone. They would not tolerate representa- 
tives of any other class to share in the government, 
or to speak in either the name of their class or of 
Russia; and this they called democracy! Even 
Prussian despots were more careful than they to 
keep up the pretense of giving all classes a share 
in the franchise, and so presumably in the govern- 
ment of the state. Every Prussian voted; but 
the votes were so weighted that in some cases one 
Junker equalled sixty thousand plebeians. 

This is the Prussian way of practising equality; 
and yet there are glib, sanctimonious, and deceitful 



160 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

German professors who boast of Germany's man- 
hood suffrage and of the deep craving for democ- 
racy in the German heart. We shall not 
understand the situation until we perceive that the 
Bolsheviki and the German despots detest democ- 
racy equally, and that their detestation creates 
another strong bond between them. 

The principles of the Bolsheviki, or Maximalists, 
are summed up in the cry: "We want more!" 
which differs only in degree from that of the Ger- 
man pirates: "We want the earth!" The Bol- 
shevik is born into the world in very wretched 
circumstances. After passing beyond childhood 
he has no one but himself to turn to for support; 
then he can earn only a scanty pittance, he has 
only meagre fare and unceasing toil. On looking 
about him he sees other men much more fortunately 
placed in life; a few enjoy great wealth, which they 
themselves did not earn, but the larger part 
labour in one way or another, and the scale has 
been so arranged that most of them are so well 
paid that they can give their families ease and 
comfort — perhaps even luxury. 

This inequality in their lots seems to the Bol- 
shevik proof not only of inequality but of rank 
injustice. He believes himself the victim, and no 
doubt he sometimes is, of exploitation by those 



DESPOTISM BY THE DREGS 161 

above him. He thinks that the social and indus- 
trial system in which he is hopelessly imprisoned 
regards him as unhumanly as it would a wheel- 
barrow or a hoe — a tool necessary for accumulating 
wealth for the beneficiaries of the system — not a 
man with a man's hopes, needs, sorrows, and suffer- 
ings, to be dealt with sympathetically. 

If he inquires of his aged parents how it was 
with them they tell him that it was no better; 
or with their parents, or with those who went 
before, as far as tradition whispers. And so ho 
concludes that a hideous and merciless injustice 
persists from age to age in the world and, like a 
python, strangles him as his fellows in its frightful 
coils. 

The heart that nurses a grievance, the head 
that turns over and over in sullen anger a wrong 
which it cannot redress, can never be safe counsel- 
lors. Whosoever speaks in wrath, speaks folly. 
But the Bolsheviki and all like them listen to their 
wrath and act as it dictates. Since they cannot 
get the wealth they covet in any other way, they 
will take it by force; and snaky sophists urge them 
on, telling them that the wealth is really theirs, 
because they and their kindred earned it. 

To want more — if "more" means education, 
wisdom, virtue, power to do good, humanity — 



162 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

indicates an appetite at once healthy and laudable; 
but when "more" means money, luxury, and 
other material and sensual things it is a very doubt- 
ful object of pursuit. And when you begin seizing 
from another, on the mere warrant of your own 
greed, that which belongs to him, you embark on 
downright robbery. Nor will your plea that he 
first stole it, by so-called lawful means from 
those who could not resist him, absolve you. 

Having entered on this process of appropria- 
tion, where will the Bolsheviki stop ? If they take 
all the dollars of all the non-Bolsheviki, how will 
these be able to survive ? The Germans, of course, 
are not troubled by such questions; they see to it 
that the occupants of lands which they covet — 
Belgium, Poland, Serbia, Armenia — are either 
slaughtered outright or left to die from lack of 
food. The Bolsheviki, however, have not yet 
reached the pass where they are ready to destroy, 
even if they could, the millions of Russians whose 
wealth they covet. 

Nevertheless, so far as appears in their avowed 
principles and in their acts, the great incentive 
that impels them is to transfer into their own 
purses the roubles which belong to others. 

I believe that every government like every 
individual, not only should cherish and proclaim 



DESPOTISM BY THE DREGS 163 

ideals but should strive to the utmost to attain 
them. The higher the ideals in either case, the 
less likely it is that they will be wholly attained. 

A man's reach should exceed his grasp, 
Or what's a heaven for? 

But ideals, as we use the word, imply a reach up- 
ward; an endeavour after something better; the 
yearning for the intangible, the invisible, the holy, 
the ultimate good. Test the Bolshevist aims by 
this touchstone — you find nothing ideal about 
them. They cry out against the greed and in- 
justice of the privileged classes and the capitalists; 
and all they plan to do — all, according to their 
vision, they can do — is to substitute their own 
injustice, their own greed for those of their enemies. 
They will never capture my sympathy or that of 
anybody else who sees that this is a moral world, 
in which the immoral can be put down only by 
superior moral force. To dethrone one greed 
and set up another equally hideous can bring no 
improvement; and in this case it may be that the 
system of industrial and social greed against which 
the Bolsheviki rage is less evil than their own in- 
cendiary purpose. 

They have not learned a truth that was revealed 
to men ages and ages ago — long before industrial- 



164 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

ism was dreamed of — that "Order is heaven's first 
law." Bolsheviki and anarchists who propose 
to set up disorder, in place of such order as the 
world has been able to maintain, condemn them- 
selves and their system. They advocate a condi- 
tion so utterly antagonistic to every human and 
natural law that it cannot possibly endure. Any 
one, of course, can cause disorder. And if the 
disorder be on a sufficiently large scale it may be 
called a revolution; but revolutions do not last. 
After the anarchist has smashed everything he 
detests he must set up in its place a regime in which 
every-day life can go on, business be transacted, 
commerce be extended, the ordinary human con- 
tacts be enjoyed, the individual experience of men, 
women, and children be undergone. 

The time must come, even in the Utopia of 
which the anarchist dreams, when there will be no 
more enemies for him to blow up. His Utopia 
provides for no regular occupation; but if we try 
to visualize it we see only him and all his fellow 
anarchists whirling round like epileptic mice in a 
frenzy of movement that leads to nothing. Poli- 
tical revolutions do, indeed, seem to be in per- 
manence, if not chronic, in some of the South 
American republics; but if we examine closely we 
shall find that usually, after a few days or weeks 



DESPOTISM BY THE DREGS 165 

of violence and hysteria — during which a tyrant 
that would be attempts to oust the tyrant that is — 
the country returns to a state of tranquillity, at 
least so far as to permit the ordinary routine of 
life to be resumed. 

Visit any of those republics after it has come 
through the longest, frightfullest, and most san- 
guinary revolution, and you will perceive that all 
of its population which has survived somehow or 
other succeeded, even during the worst days, in 
getting food; from which you infer that the hum- 
drum employments of life, against which the 
anarchist rages, still went on, though in diminished 
volume. Revolution can no more be an enduring 
condition in a state than can brain fever in a 
person. The anarchist may rejoin that he does 
not aim at forming a state or a nation; that, on the 
contrary, he desires each individual to be isolated, 
to be his own master, to follow his own whims and 
passions, unhampered by the laws or whims of 
anybody else. 

On every ground, sane men the world over 
must deplore that Russia on the very threshold 
of her freedom should have fallen a prey to the 
despicable yet terrible — (all maniacs are terrible) 
— Bolsheviki. And it is all the more to be regretted 
that Lenine, Trotzky, and the other leaders of the 



166 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

Bolshevist orgy of crime and cruelty are Jews. 
The nineteenth was the century of the germs and 
the Germans, and the twentieth seems destined 
to be the century of the Jews, who, after being 
for ages unjustly cast out and persecuted as the 
pariahs of civilization, have become the parasites 
who fatten on its industries, commerce, and 
finance. Their entry, under the guise of Bol- 
sheviki, into the sphere of government is ominous. 
If this is a sample of what the world is to be under 
them, better, a thousand times better, that the 
Deluge should come before rather than after them. 

Have you ever seen a community of prairie dogs, 
in which each sits up erect at the opening of 
his particular burrow? Substitute anarchists for 
prairie dogs, each with a gun, watching to snipe any 
of his neighbours who unwarily pops his head out 
of his hole, and you have a foresight of the Utopia 
that anarchism hopes to erect on the ruins of the 
present world. But prairie dogs live on a com- 
paratively low level of morals and intelligence in 
the animal kingdom, and no reasonable man would 
take them as a pattern for building a human state. 
That the best the anarchists can hold up to us, as 
their vision of what should be, is the prairie-dog 
community shows where they belong. 

But the Bolsheviki and their similars in many 



DESPOTISM BY THE DREGS 167 

countries deny that they are anarchists; and they 
insist that they uphold the quite opposite ideals of 
socialism. "Socialist" has become a term of such 
varied, elastic, vague, and evasive meaning that 
many persons accept it as they might wear a mag- 
nificent cloak to render themselves invisible at 
need. In fact, it is almost as useful as Charity 
for covering a multitude of sins. 

I am not concerned with labels, but with actions; 
and the actions of the Bolsheviki, so far as they 
have been described during the Russian Revolu- 
tion, warrant us in classing them with the most 
destructive revolutionists, who propose and have 
to some extent used the methods of the anarchists, 
whatever may be the state they wish to establish 
after they have destroyed society as it is. 

There is an old story — perhaps untrue — of one 
of the early Rothschilds, who was held up one day 
by a ruffian-like fellow who said angrily: "I be- 
lieve in the division of wealth. Nobody has a 
right to be as rich as you are." Not at all discon- 
certed, Rothschild was silent for a moment, as if 
computing, then he replied: "Very well. I am 
worth so much. There are so many million 
inhabitants in this country. Your share, pro rata, 
is two and a half thalers. Here they are." And 
he handed out the money and walked on. 



168 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

That seemed a simple way to settle the feverish 
conflict between capital and labour; but, even if 
the division could be made peaceably, nobody 
believes that it would result in a lasting settlement. 
I do not intend to thrust forward the argument, 
as cheap as it is trite, against socialism or an- 
archism or any other scheme of revolution, that, 
even if it were carried out, the world would revert 
in a week's time to its immemorial state of in- 
equality; those who have the knack of getting rich 
would have begun to acquire the share of those who 
not only cannot make money but cannot even keep 
it when they have it. A survey of history, ancient 
or modern, justifies us in assuming that this rever- 
sion to inequality would take place. But, with 
the damnation of Germany before us, let us beware 
of asserting that human nature will neVer do this 
thing or that thing. 

Up to fifty years ago the Germans were regarded 
as a decent, well-intentioned, rather kindly if 
mannerless people; leaders in philosophy and in 
music; leaders in science; devoted to education; 
literally saturated with the poetry and prose of 
Goethe, Schiller, and their contemporaries; fed on 
Luther's Bible; and prone to relieve their patient, 
plodding pursuit of science by romanticist out- 
bursts and by unabashed sentimentality. 



DESPOTISM BY THE DREGS 169 

Then the Prussian virus, which had been dis- 
tilling from Prussian bandits, Junkers, and bar- 
barians for many generations, was inoculated into 
the German body; and it spread slowly through 
every artery and vein, through every limb and 
muscle, including the heart, and mounted into the 
brain — and poisoned all. And the German people, 
the good-natured burly people of scarcely half a 
century ago, has been perverted into a nation of 
wolves and serpents. 

They repudiate every moral law, every instinct 
of humanity that raises man above the beasts; 
they preach and practise the slaughter of the 
innocent and the defenseless; they shrink from 
neither arson nor outrage nor torture ; they pollute 
wells and spread baneful bacteria; they bombard 
hospitals and hospital ships, killing without mercy 
the wounded, the nurses, and the surgeons; and in 
their insensate fury they destroy even trees, mute 
witnesses of their diabolism. 

With this object lesson before us of the power 
of evil to transform a people in less than fifty years, 
let no one say hereafter that human nature is 
always the same; and that, therefore, reforms 
which aim at making over its essence cannot 
possibly succeed. Let us rather ask why, if the 
forces of evil can work this change, the forces of 



170 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

good might not conceivably work another equally 
fundamental ? 

It is on our belief that human nature is per- 
fectible — that we can, as individuals and as groups, 
improve ourselves in manners, mind, and morals — 
that we base our systems of education from age 
to age. They change and the pupils whom they 
discipline change — an indication that human 
nature, which underlies both, changes also. Nay, 
the Germans, who are now so thoroughly infected 
with the Hunnish poison, might plead that that 
is not what it used to be: for during the Thirty 
Years' War the Germans resorted to cannibalism 
and ate each other — a degradation they have ab- 
stained from in the present war. 

I admit, therefore, that, as human nature may 
change, the argument against Socialism, which 
depends on the unchangeability of human nature, 
is not valid. But let us turn from vague and very 
remote possibilities to unescapable facts. Let us 
ask what the Bolsheviki professed and what they 
actually did. It ought certainly to be fair to take 
Trotzky, whom they have followed and obeyed 
for many months, as their representative and to 
regard him as their authoritative spokesman. 

In 1916 he was living in France, editing an 
incendiary Russian newspaper called the Nashe 



DESPOTISM BY THE DREGS 171 

Slavo, and sowing the seeds of the Revolution to the 
best of his ability among the French proletariat. 
He belonged to the Workmen's International, a 
body that has been industriously burrowing under 
the surface of society in most of the European 
countries and in the United States. Being sus- 
pected of instigating a mutiny among Russian 
sailors, Trotzky was expelled from France. 

It happened that Jules Guesde, a socialist of 
formidable reputation, was a member of the 
Briand Ministry which expelled him. Trotzky 
thereupon addressed to Guesde an open letter 
filled with vituperation and scorn of the backsliding 
socialist minister, and with fiery protestations 
of Trotzky's incorruptibility and dauntlessness. 
Listen to a few sentences from this address of the 
Muscovite Catiline: 



We revolutionary internationalists are more dangerous 
enemies of German reaction than all the governments of the 
Allies taken together. Their hostility to Germany is, at 
the bottom, nothing but the hatred of the competitor; our 
revolutionary hatred of its ruling class is indestructible. 
Imperialist competition may again unite the rival enemy 
brethren of to-day. When the total destruction of Ger- 
many has been realized, England and France, after a decade, 
would again approach the Kaiserdom of the Hohenzollern 
in the friendliest spirit, to defend themselves against the 
superiority of Russia. A future Poincare will exchange tele- 
grams of congratulation with Wilhelm or with his heirs; 



172 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

Lloyd George, in the peculiar language of the priest and the 
boxer, will curse and condemn Russia as the defending wall of 
barbarism and militarism; Albert Thomas, as the French am- 
bassador to the Kaiser, would be showered with flowers cut 
by the gentle hands of the court madames of Potsdam, as 
occurred so recently in Tsarskoe Selo. 

All the banalities of present-day speeches and articles 
would again be unpacked. Mr. Renaudel would have to 
change in his article only the proper names, a task for which 
his mental faculties and abilities would doubtless suffice. 
But we will remain the outspoken sworn enemies of Ger- 
many's rulers that we are to-day; for we hate German reac- 
tion with the same revolutionary hatred that we have sworn 
against Czarism and against the French moneyed aristocracy.* 

Brave words of the Muscovite Catiline of 1916! 
But I do Catiline an injustice by this comparison; 
for the Roman fought and died ; but the Bolshevik 
ranted and vapoured and ignominiously sur- 
rendered. There is a long distance still between 
such Russians and the Romans, not only in 
their civilization but in their capacity for backing 
up a revolution, or in any other task requiring 
character. 

Less than a year after Trotzky had hurled his 
defiant sarcasm at Guesde he turned up in Berlin 
on his way from New York to Russia, and there 
some influence seems to have overcome his valour. 



*This letter was first printed in Geneva and recently appeared in the 
Class Struggle, the Internationalist organ in New York City. The New York 
Tribune reprinted it on March 16, 1918. 



DESPOTISM BY THE DREGS 173 

More than that, it seems to have hopelessly 
crippled his sense of logic; for on reaching Russia 
and succeeding, with Lenine, in grasping control 
of the Revolution, which had sunk by this time 
to the level of the Bolsheviki, he set about arrang- 
ing to surrender Russia to William II and the 
Austrian Emperor, whom he had recently branded 
as "two criminals who . . . refused to respect 
the rules and regulations of international law." He 
and Lenine disbanded the shattered fragments of 
the Russian army, bade the Russians fraternize 
with the Teutons, and in less than four months 
had made over great provinces of Russia, with 
fifty-five million inhabitants, to the German 
Kaiser and his Austrian vassal. 

To those of us who still cling to the meaning of 
words and who understand the values of the things 
behind the words, this is the most amazing treach- 
ery in history; but Trotzky would no more blush 
at being accused of it than he blushed at com- 
mitting it. He holds patriotism in disdain; he 
calls it "this mania of nationalism." In his view 
the proletarians have no nation, no country; and, 
therefore, they feel no patriotic passion. What 
binds them together is their class interest, which 
he regards as identical in Russia, Germany, France, 
and the United States. 



174 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

But we cannot help asking what happened to 
change Trotzky's vehement hatred of the German 
Kaiser. Their enemies say that he and his Bol- 
shevist accomplices were bought up by the Kaiser's 
gold; and we can imagine that if they were, in fact, 
bribable, the Kaiser could have lured them all for 
a smaller sum than it costs him to run the war a 
day. 

There is, however, besides bribery, the alterna- 
tive reason — duplicity — to account for the great 
betrayal. Lenine and Trotzky and the little 
group of vapourers round them may have been 
honestly hoodwinked, gulled, and captured by 
German guile. How varied this is we all know. 
Perhaps the Germans flattered the vanity of these 
two men, who had risen with tragical suddenness 
to control in a very real sense the destiny of 
Russia, and to deflect, so far as they could, the 
course of the war. 

Doubtless the Boches promised much, smoothed 
over difficulties, pretended to be deeply concerned 
for the welfare of the downtrodden Russian 
proletariat, and anxious lest, if the Bolsheviki did 
not accept German good will, some turn of fortune 
might restore the Czar, and with him all the 
tyranny the lower classes had suffered from the 
Romanoffs. In short, you can imagine what 



DESPOTISM BY THE DREGS 175 

blandishments you will; the result you know: 
Led by Lenine and Trotzky, the Bolshevist fly 
walked with a lunatic simper into the parlour of the 
Hun spider. Russia ceased to exist as a coherent 
empire. 

What should we say of these men? They had 
protested for years their hatred of tyranny; but 
when the Russian yoke was lifted for the first 
time they were so feeble-minded, so moth-witted, 
that they rushed voluntarily and eagerly to put 
their necks into a yoke more terrible than they had 
ever borne. Bad and loathsome as czarist despo- 
tism was, it never equalled that of the Prussians, 
for under the czars there always came respites in 
oppression — moments when the corrupt and in- 
competent administration relaxed a little, perhaps 
from sheer indolence; but the Poles in Posen and 
the French in Alsace know that the Prussian 
never relaxes. To him a subject people is an 
enemy toward whom he never relents. On the 
contrary, he busies his careful, painstaking mind 
in devising new forms of persecution. To Prus- 
sian tyranny Trotzky and Lenine consigned the 
Russian people with a smirk of self-satisfaction, 
as if they were placing their countrymen beyond 
the reach of peril. 

Trotzky has written so clear a statement of his 



176 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

aims* that we are hardly likely to misunderstand 
or misjudge him. Before the war he believed that 
the Second International — that is, the Socialist 
League, which was organized in Europe and Amer- 
ica — would control not merely international eco- 
nomic but also international political conditions. 
If the capitalistic governments proposed to make 
war on each other, the French socialist, being a 
socialist first and a Frenchman second, would 
simply refuse to fight the German, who was as- 
sumed to be a socialist first and a German second; 
and so of Russian, Austrian, Italian, and all other 
socialists. Then evidently there could be no war. 
But facts inconsiderately exploded the socialist 
expectations, perhaps because the German, through 
his utter brutality, taught the Frenchman and the 
others that he was at heart German before every- 
thing else. The socialists in Germany truckled 
obsequiously to the imperial command, and their 
leaders informed foreign socialists that they con- 
templated no move which should weaken or menace 
the German imperialist policy. I except the 
socialist Liebknecht, who so far as appears, has 
been the one moral hero in Germany since August, 
1914; and he has been, quite naturally, most of 
the time in prison. 

*Jhe Bghheviki and World Peace, by Leon Trotzky, New York, 1918. 



DESPOTISM BY THE DREGS 177 

Trotzky has had to deplore, therefore, that the 
nations were fighting the battles of capitalism, in 
which the proletariat had absolutely no interest, 
just as if the International had not been working 
and agitating for more than a decade. And so he 
laments that the Second International had noth- 
ing to do but to die. When Russia rid herself of 
the Czar by the Revolution and the Bolsheviki 
came into control, Trotzky, the lifelong enemy 
of Capitalism, was inspired by the brilliant 
thought that he would betray Russia to Ger- 
many, the very country which, he insisted, had 
made greater advances in capitalism than any 
other. 

Writing only a few months ago, Trotzky ex- 
pressed alarm lest the war should continue for 
several years, until all the belligerents were 
reduced to exhaustion. If that state were reached 
he foresaw that the proletariat would be worse off 
than any of the other classes; so much so, indeed, 
that all the gains the socialists had made in the 
last "two generations would vanish in a sea of 
blood, without leaving a trace behind. " Accord- 
ingly, he believed it to be desperately urgent that 
peace should be arrived at on any terms. It 
mattered little to him that it should be a German 
peace, leaving German despotism, based on Jun- 



178 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

kerdom and the army, actually if not avowedly 
intact. He says: 

Such a struggle for peace means for us not only a fight to 
save humanity's material and cultural possessions from fur- 
ther insane destruction. It is for us primarily a fight to 
preserve the revolutionary energy of the proletariat. To as- 
semble the ranks of the proletariat in a fight for peace means 
again to place the forces of revolutionary socialism against 
raging, tearing imperialism on the whole front. 

Thus the Bolshevist peace into which Trotzky 
would inveigle us holds two possibilities for this 
war-worn, blood-choked world: Either the Ger- 
man Empire, controlling more than two hundred 
million people, will proceed, as soon as it can 
conscript its able-bodied men into armies and 
equip them, to conquer the world; or if, by some 
miracle which neither Trotzky nor anybody else 
describes, Germany is transformed into a peace- 
loving "female" race, then the proletariat will 
rise up and blight the world with such a revolu- 
tion as it has never even dreamed of. Trotzky 
remarks : 

The present war has wrenched the hammer out of the 
worker's hand and put a gun into his hand instead. And 
the worker, who has been tied down by the machinery of the 
capitalist system, is suddenly torn from his usual setting and 
taught to place the aims of society above happiness at home, 



DESPOTISM BY THE DREGS 179 

and even life itself. With the weapon in his hand that he 
himself has forged, the worker is put in a position where the 
political destiny of the state is directly dependent upon him. 

In quoting Trotzky's words I would beg the 
reader to understand that he means them literally. 
Monstrous as it may seem to the average intelligent 
American that any one could await complacently 
a world either shackled to German despotism or 
demolished by an earthquake of world-wide range, 
Trotzky and his friends and his dupes in every 
country look forward to one or the other of these 
alternatives. 

Thanks to Trotzky and Lenine, and their 
betrayal of Russia, we know what Bolshevikism 
aims at and what it has already done. There are 
Bolsheviki in all countries, but the Russian variety 
is the reductio ad absurdum of them all. They set 
out with an implacable hatred of tyranny and 
immediately surrendered to the tyranny of Ger- 
many. More gullible creatures have not been 
known in history. They profess to yearn for peace, 
but it is not the peace of justice, not the peace of 
democracy, but a peace in which the Social Inter- 
national may at once overturn whatever remains 
of civilized government. 

To think of surrendering the last shred of law 
and order to such incompetent visionaries is crazy! 



i8o VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

But it is against this very danger that the states- 
men of the Allies must be on their guard. These 
proletarians pretend that they are international and 
aim at no narrowing local patriotism. In fact, 
however, the German socialists remain incurably 
German, and they hoped, at the congress at 
Stockholm, to seduce and swindle the other 
national socialist bodies as they succeeded in doing 
with the Russian. In the United States the I. 
W. W., who represent the militant wing of the 
proletariat, have not disguised their pro-German 
purposes. 

There are sentimental souls whose pity for the 
wretched leads them not merely to defend the 
Bolsheviki, wherever they may be, but even to 
justify and eulogize them. In their philanthropic 
hearts they feel a glow of self-satisfaction throb- 
bing at what they call the wrecks and slaves 
of capitalism. They are as surely the enemies 
of justice and humanity as are the pacifists. 
Under the mask of aiding downtrodden pro- 
letarians they are actively engaged in strengthen- 
ing the Germans. Make no mistake about this, 
you ladies who flit hysterically from fad to fad 
and just now weave garlands for the Bolsheviki. 

There is but one moral: Civilization must beat 
Hun barbarism and win this war. That accom- 



DESPOTISM BY THE DREGS 181 

plished, the world will turn to social and economic 
questions and settle them through righteousness 
and through justice. To stop the war now, at 
the plea of socialists and the proletariat, would 
be to betray all classes and the dominion of the 
world to the Hun, whose rule is the negation of 
civilization. 



VII 
ITALY'S GREAT SERVICE IN THE WAR 1 

I 

ITALY has been the most misunderstood and 
consequently the most misjudged of all the 
Allies. It was only after the serious disaster at 
Caporetto, in October, 1917, that we and the 
French and English came to recognize officially 
the greatness of the task which Italy had had to 
accomplish and the reasons for her partial failure. 
She had three difficulties to overcome — diplomatic 
entanglements, material and financial obstacles, 
and internal enemies. 

Her chief diplomatic entanglement when the 
war began came from the fact, that for thirty- two 
years she had been a partner with Germany and 
Austria in the Triple Alliance. This secret agree- 
ment had proved to be the most lasting of all 
Bismarck's international arrangements. Having 
created the German Empire in 1871, as the first 
fruits of his victory over the French, he laid about 



World's Work, August, 1918. 

182 



ITALY'S GREAT SERVICE 183 

to discover the means by which he might assure 
the permanence. He saw clearly enough that the 
day would come when an irresistible conflict would 
break out between the rising forces of democracy 
and the long-established power of despotism, and 
he intended to strengthen and prepare Germany to 
be the last stronghold of despotism. He knew that 
the House of Hohenzollern had won all its victories, 
at home and abroad, under despotic principles; 
he ridiculed publicly the incapacity of the Germans 
for self-government, and he understood clearly 
that their innate servility to their rulers and 
their devotion to militarism made them willing 
tools of their despots. 

In his desire to render despotism invincible 
he thought of uniting Austria and Russia with 
Germany in an alliance for mutual defence. But 
Russia declined his overtures; not that the Czar 
had any intention of abandoning despotism in 
governing Russia, but that he preferred to be his 
own despot, and he was sufficiently astute to see 
that whoever would ride on the same horse with 
Bismarck must ride behind. Foiled in this scheme, 
Bismarck had to look round for another partner. 

Regarding France both as the chief champion 
of democracy in continental Europe, and as the 
nation which would be most likely to form any 



184 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

league and to seize any occasion for attacking 
Germany, he tried less than five years after the 
Franco-Prussian War ended to stir up another 
quarrel with her, in which he said he would "bleed 
her white" beyond all hope of recovery; and he 
never ceased to regret that he had not reduced 
her to a mere province in 187 1. To isolate her 
became the dominant purpose of his statecraft. 
One way of doing this was to kindle hatred be- 
tween Italy and France. There being already a 
good deal of friction between those countries, he 
made this dynamic by an overt act. 

Italy had long coveted Tunis as an African 
colony on the northern shore of the Mediterranean. 
The French, who already possessed Algeria, wished 
to expand over Tunis also, and Bismarck intimated 
that neither he nor the English would raise any 
objections. So the French took Tunis, and thereby 
aroused a storm of rage against them throughout 
Italy. The transaction cost Bismarck nothing, 
but it fomented the hatred which he desired be- 
tween the two Latin countries. It also created 
in the Italians a sense of their isolation, amounting 
almost to helplessness, which made them easy 
victims of his further seduction; for of course they 
were unaware that he had abetted the French in 
seizing Tunis. 



ITALY'S GREAT SERVICE 185 

United Italy was a young nation barely ten 
years old, and she had not yet outlived the curse 
of sectionalism which left her weak at home and 
unfeared abroad. She had to catch up with her 
civilized neighbours in education, in railroads, in 
telegraphs, and in all the other organs of modern 
material progress. She was tremendously handi- 
capped by lack of coal and iron ; she was very poor 
in the means of producing wealth; and she was 
staggering under the debts of the former small 
states out of which she grew. A permanent 
cause of anxiety lurked in her very midst; this 
was the residence at Rome of the Pope, whose 
most zealous adherents in Catholic countries 
constantly threatened to reestablish his temporal 
power. But what better protection could she 
have against Papal intrigues than Germany, the 
chief Protestant power on the Continent? 

Accordingly, by the year 1881 the Italians 
were ready — through Bismarck's manipulations, 
which they did not suspect — to think favourably 
of the suggestion to join Germany in an alliance. 
They found that they would have to include 
Austria also, and this was a very bitter proposal, 
because the Italians had only recently fought 
their way to independence from Austrian domi- 
ion. Nevertheless, the Italian Government and 



186 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

many of the political leaders consented to the 
alliance, magnifying to its largest proportions the 
fact that Italy was a partner of Germany, and 
paying as little attention as possible to Austria. 

This Triple Alliance was purely defensive. The 
vital clause in it bound the other members to go 
to the aid of the third in case he were attacked. 
The terms of the treaty were kept secret for many 
years but its substance soon leaked out. What 
did Italy get from it? Most of her gain was 
theoretical: the alliance would protect her from 
an attack by France and would render improbable 
any attempt by Austria to restore the Pope. It 
also somewhat increased her feeling of importance, 
and her self-reliance. But it opened the door to 
"peaceful penetration" by Germany, and reduced 
her almost to the state of Germany's vassal in 
commerce and in industry before the year 1914. 

When the war was imminent, in July in that 
year, the world speculated as to what Italy would 
do. Being a member of the Triple Alliance, it 
was assumed, by those who form their opinions 
hastily, that she would take part on the side of 
her allies. The suspense we all felt was almost 
intolerable. Finally, late in the night of July 31st, 
Italy announced to France that she would not 
take part against the Allies, but would denounce 



ITALY'S GREAT SERVICE 187 

the Triple Alliance and retire from it. The relief 
caused by this announcement was almost incal- 
culable. Italy's action permitted the French to 
withdraw several army corps from the Italian 
frontier, and to transfer them to the north to meet 
the German shock. The moral significance was 
equally great: the Italians — having had, as part- 
ners of the Teutons, special means of knowing 
the origins of the war — declared that it was 
aggressive and not defensive, thus exposing for 
all time the pretexts and excuses of the German 
statesmen, and the lies of the German Kaiser. 

The Germans cried out that the Italians had 
betrayed the pledge they had given in the Triple 
Alliance, but this charge was false, as the terms 
of that treaty made evident. In order that the 
reader may have no doubt of this, I quote 
Article III of the treaty: 

If one or two of the High Contracting Parties should 
be attacked without direct provocation on their part, and 
be engaged in war with two or several Great Powers not sig- 
natory to this Treaty, the casus foederis shall apply simultane- 
ously to all the High Contracting Powers. 

It was tacitly understood, however, that Italy 
should not be drawn into war with England, in 
case that country were at war with Germany or 
Austria. 



188 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

In 1914 the Germans were bent on discrediting 
Italy, so that the Allies would put no trust in her. 
The great joy that we experienced on knowing 
that Italy would not aid the Teutons was soon 
followed by a puzzled surprise. We took it for 
granted that her break with them implied that 
she would fight against them. Nevertheless, week 
followed week during that awful month of August, 
when the Huns swept through France, but Italy 
made no sign of moving. In early September, 
Foch defeated the German hosts at the Marne, 
and then they made their first great drive for 
Calais, but still the Italians did not move. Then 
rumours flew about — rumours which the Ger- 
mans did their utmost to spread — that the Italians 
were soulless mercenaries, vilely waiting to see 
which of the combatants would pay them best 
for their support. 

The autumn passed by, winter came on, the 
Germans intrenched themselves from the Channel 
to Switzerland; the French and the English 
urgently needed reinforcements on the western 
front. Still the Italians remained impassive; im- 
passive, but not idle, for they devoted themselves 
to getting ready a large army, because the out- 
break of the war had found them exhausted in 
munitions and supplies as well as in troops — 



ITALY'S GREAT SERVICE 189 

their two years' campaign in Tripoli and against 
the Turks having left them quite unprepared for 
a new and greater conflict. 

Now this was the reason — this unpreparedness — 
which caused Italy to remain neutral throughout 
the winter of 1914-15. She was not, as the Germans 
insinuated, putting her support at the service of 
the highest bidder, although Rome was infested by 
German intriguers and by the agents of the Allies, 
each of whom tried to win her over by the strongest 
inducements. Just as the Kaiser sent over here 
some of his glib corrupters, like Dernburg, so he 
sent a lot of them into Italy, and it was perhaps 
evidence that he then regarded it more important 
to win Italy over than the United States, that he 
despatched to Rome the oiliest, sleekest, and 
most resourceful of all his trained seducers, Prince 
Bulow. 

To understand how promising the field was in 
which Biilow worked, we must remember that for 
twenty-five years German capital had been domi- 
nating northern Italy. Under its impulse, banks, 
factories, mills, steamship companies, and a vigor- 
ous foreign trade had sprung up and prospered. 
Naturally, the Germans, who had the money, 
controlled these enterprises and put Germans in to 
manage them. German interests gradually be- 



190 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

came very powerful, and the native Italians found 
that deputies representing those interests were 
elected to parliament, and had much influence, 
direct or indirect, on legislation. So Prince Bulow 
could count on this support. He could count 
also on a certain section of the Italian nobility; 
either because it had never forgotten its allegiance 
to its former petty rulers before the days of United 
Italy, or because the aristocratic class was more or 
less solidaire in all countries. It required no great 
cleverness to convince them that autocratic Ger- 
many was fighting for them, because it was bent 
on destroying democracy — the system which, if 
it finally triumphed, would do away with nobles 
and monarchs too. 

Bulow had a third ally in the Blacks (the Papal 
party which cared nothing for the welfare of Italy 
but has always gladly clasped the hand of any 
accomplice, or welcomed any scheme that aimed 
at breaking up the Italian Kingdom — the condi- 
tion precedent to the restoration of the Pope's 
temporal power.) There was a fourth element 
also with which the wily Bulow coquetted, the 
socialists. We can judge now from having seen 
the effects of German intrigues on the Russian 
socialists, how dangerous Billow's manipulation 
of the Italian threatened to be. One of the 



ITALY'S GREAT SERVICE 191 

astonishing facts of the past four years is that the 
socialists of all the other countries, although they 
protest that they are international, allow them- 
selves to become willing dupes, victims, or accom- 
plices, of the German socialists. Socialism will have 
a hard task when it tries to explain this monstrous 
incongruity. 

The Prince not only carried in his pocket vulgar 
gold for buying those who were purchasable, 
but he carried in his portfolio enticing offers which 
he dangled before the Italian Government. When 
at last he realized that he could neither frighten 
nor cajole Italy into fighting alongside of her 
partners in the Triple Alliance, he worked des- 
perately to persuade her to remain neutral, and 
with this in view, he promised her the Trentino 
and Trieste if she would not join the Allies. The 
territory he so coolly offered belonged to Austria 
and not to Germany, but he knew, and the Kaiser 
knew, and the world now knows, that Austria was 
virtually Germany's vassal, and would have to 
accept whatever arrangements the German Kaiser 
dictated. 

Competing with Biilow were the French and the 
English spokesmen, who used arguments which in 
general appealed to the higher nature and ideals 
of the Italians. They made it plain that if Italy — 



i 9 2 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

the country which had achieved her independence 
through the principle of freedom, the country 
whose founders were Mazzini, Garibaldi, and 
Cavour (the three apostles of freedom) — were to 
side with Germany, she would deny her guiding 
principles, and become herself the tool of despot- 
ism. No doubt also they urged her to understand 
that in the long run her material prosperity was 
likely to be bound up in friendship with the western 
powers and not with the Teutons. They, too, 
promised her that at the close of the war she should 
have back Unredeemed Italy, and they were willing 
to give her immediately a subsidy — not very large — 
toward paying the cost of putting her army into 
the field. 

Two things prevented her from being lured by 
Prince Bulow: first, the loyalty of King Victor 
Emmanuel to the tradition of liberty, and, next, 
the rising tide of anti-German public opinion 
among the masses and the intellectual leaders of the 
country. 

At last, on May 24, 1915, her military pre- 
parations having been completed, Italy, amid a 
burst of popular enthusiasm, declared war on 
Austria. 

Why on Austria alone? Because she regarded 
Austria as the actual provoker of the war. The 



ITALY'S GREAT SERVICE 193 

ultimate criminal was unquestionably Germany, 
which had been waiting for many years for a 
pretext for war. Recently, Germany had in- 
stigated Austria to force the issue with Serbia, and 
at the last moment, when Austria seemed on the 
point of coming to a peaceful understanding with 
Russia, the German Emperor had sent to France 
and to Russia his ultimatums which made peace 
impossible. Italy had also other reasons for aiming 
at Austria rather than at Germany — or at both: 
Austria was her immediate neighbour; Austria 
held the territory of Unredeemed Italy which was 
to be delivered from bondage; Austria, as Italy's 
hereditary enemy and oppressor, kindled the in- 
stinctive animosity of the Italians. 

Once at war, Italy prosecuted it with all her 
resources. In the course of a year she had a mil- 
lion men under arms at or near the front. She 
drilled two million more, but she had not enough 
arms or munitions or uniforms to equip them. She 
had to fight over the most difficult terrain in 
Europe — in the valleys and on the ridges of the 
Alps which formed the frontier between her and 
Austria. When that frontier was drawn by Aus- 
tria, in 1866, it left all the approaches to Italy 
through the Alpine passes open to Austrian in- 
vasion, and this of course made it doublv diffi- 



194 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

cult for the Italians to advance into the enemy's 
country. 

I do not intend to describe the campaign in de- 
tail. Suffice it to say that the Italians succeeded 
in taking and holding a strip of the mountainous 
territory, and that on the east they occupied all of 
the Venetian Plain as far as the Carnic Alps. 
Their feats of engineering, by which they construct- 
ed roads over the mountains, and made tunnels 
through them; the fortitude with which month 
after month they clung to crags and peaks and 
intrenchments amid the snow in perilous positions, 
sometimes 10,000 feet high; the ingenuity with 
which they transported heavy guns and all their 
supplies on wire cables slung from crag to crag 
far above the valleys; the stern pluck with which 
they endured unremittent cold, Alpine blizzards, 
and slowly diminishing rations, are among the 
marvels of even this war. 

We see now that the course which, in a measure, 
checked all these efforts was that fatal lack of a 
single military command over all of the Allied 
armies in the west — a defect which was remedied 
only in March, 1918, after the first colossal German 
drive in Picardy had startled the British and 
French. Then they appointed General Foch and 
secured a unification of military direction which 



ITALY'S GREAT SERVICE 195 

will, let us hope, bring a speedy victory. But in 
1915, 1916, and 1917, the armies fought without 
proper coordination. If this handicapped the 
British and the French, campaigning side by side in 
France, still more did it harm the Italians, isolated 
from the Allies on the west both by the whole 
stretch of Switzerland and by the feeling that they 
had no direct contact with them. In time it came 
to seem as if Italy were fighting a war of her own, 
which only remotely concerned the Great Cause. 
The despatches gave brief reports of her exploits 
among the Alps and along the Isonzo, but few per- 
sons stopped to consider what these exploits meant. 
To the lack of unison inherent in the general 
Allied plan, was added the suspicion that the French 
and the English did not sympathize with some 
of Italy's objects. It was whispered that in com- 
ing into the war the Italians had stipulated that, 
at its close, if the Entente won, Italy should re- 
ceive certain territory along the eastern shore of 
the Adriatic. These expectations did not please the 
French and the English, who had plans of their own 
for Dalmatia and thought that insistence on the 
Italian claims would greatly complicate the solu- 
tion of the Balkan problem. There may have 
been causes of grievance which I do not know of; 
but I feel that it was wholly reasonable for Italy 



196 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

to seek to protect herself from future Teutonic raids 
by controlling the eastern shore of the Adriatic 
and its chief ports. The war has shown conclu- 
sively that so long as Hun submarines can dart out 
of those ports and out of the hiding places which 
abound on that coast, the eastern shore of Italy 
and all her commerce in the Adriatic will be at the 
mercy of the Huns. 

Leaving these vague rumours out of considera- 
tion we cannot but feel that the desire of the Italians 
to do all that they could alone tended to keep them 
somewhat aloof from their partners. Their mo- 
tives sprang from a noble source. Italy ranked 
among the Great Powers by courtesy rather than 
by actual strength; and so she proudly resolved 
to prove herself in this ordeal worthy of her as- 
sumed state. Accordingly, as long as her raw 
material lasted, she made her own guns and muni- 
tions and provided for all her needs, without beg- 
ging or borrowing. The meagre despatches that 
came from her front usually brought good news 
and led the world to suppose that she was not only 
holding her own but advancing. Her capture of 
Gorizia — one of the most glorious displays of valour 
during the war — made us all believe that she was 
on the point of driving the Austrians back to 
Laibach and beyond. 



ITALY'S GREAT SERVICE 197 

The great calamity of Caporetto, on October 27, 
191 7, took the world by surprise. Everyone out- 
side of Italy marvelled how it was that "this rout 
should almost overwhelm her so soon after we had 
received bulletins announcing her brilliant advance. 
In order to understand the disaster which swept 
Cadorna's army back from the Isonzo to the Piave 
and cost him the loss of probably 200,000 men and 
immense stores and material, we must glance at the 
internal condition of Italy from the time she en- 
tered the war. Many of the symptoms of her 
disease were common to our own case. There was 
a considerable peace party made up of business 
men who did not wish to have their prosperity 
interrupted by war. There were also pacifists — 
persons without a country or in many cases, with 
a secret preference for Germany. The socialists, 
who in Italy, as well as in other Entente lands and 
in the United States, were actually under German 
control, whether they admitted it or not, added 
many recruits to the Anti-War League. Many 
Clericals sided with the Teutons as a matter of 
course, for Austria was the chief Catholic nation 
in Europe. Since his election the Italians have 
believed — on what evidence does not appear — 
that Pope Benedict XV is pro-German. He belonged 
to one of the old reactionary aristocratic families 



198 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

of Genoa — nobles who correspond in spirit to the 
Junkers of Prussia. It was believed in Italy that the 
Pope had been promised by both the German and 
the Austrian Kaisers that they would restore his 
temporal power at the end of the war. The Ultra- 
montane Diet of Bavaria openly announced that 
this was one of the aims of the war. The failure 
of the Pope to protest against the atrocities of the 
Huns, or to rank himself squarely from the be- 
ginning on the side of the peoples struggling in be- 
half of Christian civilization, seemed to justify the 
assumption of the Italians that he was against the 
Allies; and the fact that he put forth appeals for 
peace, precisely at those times when the peace he 
advocated would mean a complete victory for the 
Germans, strengthened the suspicion of his pro- 
German desires. 

Needless to say the head of this octopus of 
treachery and discord was the German propaganda, 
which used now one tentacle and now another. It 
went so far as to concoct a fake copy of the Secolo 
newspaper of Milan in which among genuine news 
it published such lies as that the French had turned 
against the Italians, had captured Turin, and were 
besieging Milan; also that the Austrians yearned 
for peace and wished to fraternize with their Italian 
brothers. And in fact when the Austrians ad- 



ITALY'S GREAT SERVICE 199 

r 

vanced on the fatal morning of October 27th, they 
threw up their hands and shouted "Kamerad!" 
The Italians laid down their weapons and advanced 
to meet the Austrians, and then the Germans, who 
had been screened behind the Austrians, rushed 
forward, opened fire, and the panic began. For 
months previous to this priests who served as 
chaplains, and insidious lay propagandists whis- 
pered disloyalty into the ears of the troops. An 
officer, who was with the army at that time, has 
told me that the Pope's message created a most 
depressing effect among them. It turned their 
thoughts away from the unremitting prosecution 
of the war to the acceptance of peace — peace on 
any terms, regardless of consequences. 

The gradual diminishing of rations caused a 
slackening of determination and morale. A soldier 
requires a modicum of food in order to main- 
tain his resolve at the highest pitch; slow starva- 
tion saps valour. You can judge how near the 
Italian soldiers were to starvation when you know 
that for awhile before Caporetto some of the troops 
were reduced to seven dried chestnuts apiece for 
their morning ration. More even than for them- 
selves they worried over the destitution of their 
wives and children from whom they had infrequent 
or no news. The rumour that several officers 



200 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

proved traitors at the moment of the Hun's camou- 
flaged attack has not yet been fully verified. But 
there is reason to believe in its truth because a 
dozen or more of the suspected traitors were shot. 

Note that Italy was now waging war against 
both Germany and Austria. She broke with Ger- 
many in 1916. Many outsiders, Americans among 
others, wondered why she delayed so long, but the 
reason was obvious and sufficient. As I hinted 
above, thirty years of "peaceful penetration" had 
left northern Italy in the hands of Germany. She 
owned the capital, she managed the industries and 
commerce. Italy had to wait until she could train 
men of her own to replace the German experts 
who directed the mills and factories and other 
works. When she was sure that this necessary 
business would go on under her own superinten- 
dence, she declared war on Germany also. She 
had provocation enough, for since 19 15 German 
officers and even German troops had fought in the 
Austrian armies against her; the airplanes which 
began to harass her beautiful cities were German; 
and German were the submarines which glided out 
of Pola and other ports, and destroyed her shipping. 

We ought not to forget that it took courage on 
the part of Italy to throw down the gauntlet to 
Germany, because the fate of Belgium and of Po- 



ITALY'S GREAT SERVICE 201 

land warned her that if the German armies entered 
her territory they would shrink from no atrocity 
and no bestiality. If the Huns won the war, Aus- 
tria would undoubtedly make the Italians pay 
dearly; but the Germans would, according to their 
nature, vent their hatred in ways more outrageous 
than the Austrians. Looking far ahead also, Italy 
perceived that so much of her trade as depended on 
German connections would be greatly affected if 
the quarrel were between her and Germany instead 
of merely between her and Austria. Nevertheless, 
when the time was ripe she dared to confront 
Germany. 

Only when Cadorna's army was rolled back 
to the Piave, did France, England, and the United 
States realize the situation. When the possibility 
that Italy might go to pieces stared them in the 
face, they at last understood how really important, 
not to say essential, her help had been. They rushed 
two armies to check her retreat and to give her aid 
in reforming her shattered corps and in stiffening 
them for further resistance. Then we saw the 
havoc which lack of coordination had wrought, and 
we accepted the assertion that the Italian front 
should not be regarded as an isolated and detached 
line but as an integral part of the entire western 
front, of which it was in fact the right wing. 



202 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

As we perceived the causes of the mistakes and 
blunders, we could measure also the determination, 
resourcefulness, and tenacity of the Italian army 
during its two years and a half of fighting. The 
difficulties at home against internal conspirators 
and pro-German propagandists were revealed, 
and we were filled with admiration as we beheld, 
in the retrospect, Italy's plucky and proud resis- 
tance in the face of her waning resources. For 
example, when her coal supply, which she drew 
from England, was nearly exhausted, she extended 
the system of electrification, by which her indus- 
tries in the north were run from power generated by 
Alpine rivers, as far south as she could. And her 
hungry people let no murmur of complaint and no 
whimper of their poignant suffering be heard by 
the world outside. 

When the United States entered the war in 
April, 1917, the Italians received the news with a 
frenzy of joy. They felt that American coopera- 
tion was both a guarantee of final victory and of 
immediate relief from acute distress. We had 
everything — men, money, munitions, fuel, and 
above all, food. But the spring passed and nothing 
more than usual reached Italy. Spring turned to 
midsummer and midsummer to autumn, and still 
no American succour. Cadorna's army, burrowing 



ITALY'S GREAT SERVICE 203 

and crawling forward up in the northeast and seeing 
its food supply dwindle to the ration of those seven 
dried chestnuts, began to wonder whether the talk 
about help from America was all an illusion, a cruel 
falsehood. They began to fear that Italy was 
abandoned by her allies and by the world. They 
had done their utmost; they knew that they could 
not hold out much longer, and they saw no prospect 
of being rescued. This dark doubt also, sank into 
their hearts and depressed their morale. 

The eyes of our Government being opened, it 
sent, and has continued to send to Italy, so far as 
the scanty means of transportation permitted, 
the supplies of first importance. But no Ameri- 
can of fine instincts can fail to acknowledge with re- 
gret and humiliation the part which our official 
neglect played in causing the Italian debacle last 
autumn. It took that to rouse our officials to com- 
prehend the imperative need to saving Italy, just 
as it took the German drive at Amiens last March 
to rouse them to the desperate need of sending our 
troops to France in all haste and to speed up every 
preparation, unless we would allow the war to be 
lost through our delays. 

We deplore now not only the actual debacle, 
with all that it involved, but also the forfeiture of 
the victory which might have been won if the other 



204 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

Allies had given the Italians sufficient support. For 
it now seems indisputable that they were right in 
urging that the most feasible way to end the war in 
191 7 was by crushing Austria. At Caporetto, the 
farthest point of their advance, the Italians were 
only a few miles from Laibach, and if they had suc- 
ceeded in reaching that place they could have driven 
so deep a wedge into the heart of Austria that she 
would have collapsed. She was very near collapse : 
how near, is proved by the fact that the Germans 
took care to transfer their forces from the Russian 
front to the Austrian. Had Austria crumbled 
before the Germans came to her rescue, it is diffi- 
cult to see how the Germans could have gone on 
fighting alone. The collapse of Austria would 
have smashed the Middle-Europe dream and have 
cut off the Bulgarians and the Turks from their 
German overlord. The loss of this vital pos- 
sibility must be charged to the lack of a central 
control and of close cooperation among the Allies. 
Such have been the principal ways in which 
Italy has served the cause of Civilization, and 
has aided the Allies in the life-and-death struggle 
with Teutonic Barbarism. Her refusal, before 
war was declared, to join her partners in the 
Triple Alliance was her earliest service; and when 
she published the fact that, nearly a year before, 



ITALY'S GREAT SERVICE 205 

Germany and Austria had urged her to join them 
then in their war of aggression, she proved that 
their evil design on the peace of the world had 
been long premeditated. By not allowing herself 
to be stampeded into declaring war on Austria 
until she was fairly well equipped, she saved the 
cause from beginning its campaign under the 
burden of a serious defeat; for she could not, in 
August, 19 14, have prevented the Austrians from 
overrunning northern Italy. This disaster would 
have put the Italians permanently out of the war, 
and allowed their enemies to use their troops else- 
where, besides giving them the advantage of a 
most cheering initial success. 

Italy's military contribution was to keep busy 
a large part of the Austrian army. If the Russians 
had not been betrayed, this diversion of the 
Austrian strength might have sufficed to shatter 
the Hapsburg Empire before the end of 1916. 
To-day, when all the German forces are pounding 
the British and French and Americans on the 
western front, it is the Italian Army along the 
Brenta and the Piave which prevents the Austrians 
from going to reinforce the Germans on the west. 

The attempt of wily German propagandists, 
therefore, to disparage Italy has no real basis. 
The efforts of these reptiles to sow discord by 



206 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

insinuating that the Americans despise the Italians 
and set no value on their alliance, have been 
abortive, as they should be. We Americans 
understand that Italy, like the United States, 
was not hurried into the war after a few days of 
distracted and stormy negotiations, but made 
her choice deliberately, after counting the danger 
and the cost. She might have stayed out in 
ignoble neutrality. Her peril was immensely 
greater than ours, but she resolved to be true to 
her past and to cleave to the ideal of Liberty which 
was the most precious legacy she had inherited 
from her past. She deserves the gratitude of 
civilized men to-day, and especially whatever 
succour her allies can give her. She is sure of the 
praise and blessing of posterity to-morrow and 
ever after. 



VIII 

JOHN HAY'S GOOD DEED IN A NAUGHTY WORLD 1 

THE passion for landgrabbing, which may be 
considered one of the very real causes of the 
great war, possessed all the so-called civilized 
nations during the last quarter of the nineteenth 
century. Through the immense development of 
industry and transportation, due to the advance 
in science and in invention, the countries of central 
and northern Europe especially saw the time 
approaching when they would need more space; 
for the increased production swelled their popula- 
tion and they sought to acquire new lands, both 
for their surplus population and to furnish new 
markets for their products. 

The continent that was the first victim of their 
cupidity was Africa, where Europeans had settled 
only on the fringe of the seaboard. So Great 
Britain, France, Germany, and Portugal allotted 
among themselves the vast regions in the interior, 
most of which had never been explored and all of 
which were peopled by the original black natives. 

Saturday Evening Post, August 24, 1918. 

207 



208 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

Italy coveted a strip along the Mediterranean, 
but circumstances did not permit her to acquire 
it then. The difficulties of colonization, chief 
among which was the climate, prevented the rapid 
settlement of Africa. Then suddenly an event 
occurred that turned the attention of the land- 
grabbers to another continent. 

In 1894, to the astonishment of the world, the 
Japanese Army by a brief and decisive campaign 
defeated the Chinese and held China at its mercy. 
At that time Japan numbered about forty million 
inhabitants, while China counted four hundred 
millions. But the Japanese blow opened the eyes 
of the world to the fact that China, instead of be- 
ing powerful in proportion to her numbers, was 
like a great ship at sea whose rudder and propeller 
and engine are gone and whose huge bulk leaves her 
all the more at the mercy of storms. China had 
long been a rich field for foreign traders; the British 
had held Canton as their own port and various na- 
tions had secured concessions that would be profit- 
able as fast as they were exploited. Now, however, 
the Europeans would not be satisfied with mere 
concessions to trade; they must have grants of prov- 
inces. 

Their scientific prospectors had reported to 
them the existence of natural resources — coal 



JOHN HAY'S GOOD DEED 209 

deposits, for instance — of incalculable value; and 
so these foreigners grabbed land not merely with a 
view to its actual producing capacity but to its 
promise of future wealth. To control the railway 
system or the steamboats of that vast empire 
would give the concessionaires not merely untold 
millions but also great political power. 

At the very end of the nineteenth century, 
therefore, we find China the Esau among nations. 
For a mess of pottage she had surrendered her 
birthright to foreigners. It must be said, of 
course, that she did this under compulsion; but 
that she had to submit to this compulsion is one 
of the most tragic warnings in history. That an 
empire of four hundred million persons should 
be unable — through disunity and administrative 
impotence of very long standing — to defend itself 
from any assailant ought to teach every nation, 
large and small, the duty of arming itself adequately 
to its size. 

China was a very different sort of booty from 
Central Africa for the depredators. She had been 
semi-civilized for thousands of years; her people 
were docile and industrious; their products — 
particularly tea — went all over the world; their 
mineral resources, including coal, could be tapped 
without great difficulty. Their foreign exploiters, 



210 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

therefore, in getting land and concessions to trade 
really secured the immense bodies of cheap labour 
whose products would be shipped to Europe and 
America and sold at a large profit. 

This process of exploiting native labour and 
putting the profits therefrom in the white man's 
pocket was pleasantly called "bearing the white 
man's burden." So far as I recall, no slaveholder, 
even in the darkest days of slavery, ventured to 
give his occupation any such humane title; but 
perhaps we moderns show our superiority over 
the ancients in nothing else more surely than in 
our skill in hiding our corruption beneath an 
attractive enamel, and in throwing a veil of 
sanctimony over our vices. 

I need only to remark further that this hypo- 
critical cant about "bearing the white man's 
burden" was accompanied by the hardening of 
the white man's heart toward inferior races. 
There sprang up the odious doctrine that the 
superior race had the right not only to enslave by 
industrial exploitation the inferior race, but even 
to exterminate it. If a tribe of savages dwelt on 
land beneath which the geologists knew that gold 
or silvef or copper existed, it was perfectly right 
for the white men who had bought concessions 
to that land to drive off or kill the tribe. 



JOHN HAY'S GOOD DEED 211 

As was to be expected the Germans reached 
this doctrine most uncompromisingly, because 
their religious and ethical preachers existed simply 
to sanctify the practices of their military and 
commercial masters. No doubt the other dep- 
redators were selfish and unsaintly, but the Anglo- 
Saxons among them, at least, had learned as 
colonizers that justice pays better than injustice, 
and kindness than brutality. 

As soon as the foreign powers had carved up 
China — not to the limit of their greed, for that was 
insatiable, but to the extent that they then deemed 
attainable (for in this matter they had to encounter 
not only the flaccid opposition of the Chinese but 
their own mutual rivalries) — a very real danger 
loomed up. If each nation closed its port to all 
but its own traders the others would be seriously 
harmed. Quarrels would inevitably break out 
and the Europeans might soon be fighting among 
themselves — a situation that would encourage 
the Chinese Government to rise up and expel 
them. 

At this point John Hay, the American Secretary 
of State, enters upon the scene. He received 
many appeals from American investors in China 
to protect their interests. The following extract 
from a letter to Mr. Paul Dana, of the New 



212 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

York Sun, states his position early in the trans- 
action: 

We are, of course, opposed to dismemberment of that 
empire, and we do not think that the public opinion of the 
United States would justify this government in taking 
part in the great game of spoliation now going on. At the 
same time we are keenly alive to the importance of safe- 
guarding our great commercial interests in that empire 
and our representatives there have orders to watch closely 
everything that may seem calculated to injure us, and to 
prevent it by energetic and timely representations. We 
declined to support the demand of Italy for lodgment there, 
and at the same time we were not prepared to assure China 
that we would join her in repelling that demand by armed 
force. We do not consider our hands tied for future even- 
tualities; but for the present we think our best policy is 
one of vigilant protection of our commercial interests, with- 
out formal alliances with other Powers interested. 

In his instructions to Edwin H. Conger, the 
American Minister to China, Secretary Hay laid 
down this policy, and through our Ambassador to 
England, Joseph H. Choate, he circulated it in 
London. On September 6, 1899, Mr. Choate 
handed to the British Foreign Minister the famous 
American circular letter on the "Open Door." 
In it Mr. Hay said: 

The President understands that it is the settled policy and 
purpose of Great Britain not to use any privilege received 
from China to exclude any commercial rivals. The United 
States Government cannot conceal their apprehensions of 



JOHN HAY'S GOOD DEED 213 

the danger of complication arising between the Treaty 
Powers which may imperil the rights assured to the United 
States by treaty. The United States hope to retain China 
as an open market for the world's commerce, to remove 
dangerous sources of international irritation, and thereby 
hasten united action by the Powers at Peking to promote 
administrative reforms, so greatly needed, for strengthening 
the Imperial Government, and maintaining the integrity 
of China, in which the United States believe the whole west- 
ern world is alike concerned. 

This circular concluded by urging Great Britain 
to declare its adherence to these general principles; 
to respect the existing treaty ports and vested 
interests; to allow the Chinese tariff to be main- 
tained and be collected in the respective spheres 
of influence; and not to discriminate against other 
foreigners in port and railroad rates. 

The British Government having acceded to this, 
Hay sent the circular letter to the other European 
Powers, telling them that if he did not receive a 
negative reply immediately he should assume that 
they accepted his suggestion and that the ac- 
ceptance would be "final and definitive." 

In their inmost hearts the Great Powers did not 
wish to renounce their special privileges, but after 
learning that England had consented they could 
not decently refuse. Favourable answers having 
been received from all, Secretary Hay, on March 
20, 1900, informed the American diplomatic offi- 



214 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

cials abroad that his project had been accepted. 
The Open Door in China became in this wise a 
recognized fact in international policy. Mr. Wild- 
man, United States consul general at Hong-Kong, 
wrote of the result at the time : 

The result of the negotiations may be considered a dip- 
lomatic triumph for America; as Great Britain, Russia, 
Germany, and France have been at vast expense of blood 
and treasure in opening China's door, and the expense of 
keeping it open is no small figure. The policing of the 
inland rivers, the maintaining of consuls wherever there is 
hope of trade, the exploring of possible trade routes, and 
the support of cruisers to guarantee life and property along 
the coast, represent an outlay in which the United States 
does not share, but by this agreement hopes to benefit. 

But the real significance of John Hay's victory 
in the struggle to establish the Open-Door policy 
was much more than even diplomatic or com- 
mercial. It reasserted the doctrine of the Golden 
Rule, which had had scant regard paid to it for 
many generations. Still further, the Open-Door 
policy hinged on preserving the integrity of China. 
It admitted that weaker and so-called inferior 
races had rights that the strong and dominant 
races were bound to respect. It registered a re- 
versal of fashion in diplomatic standards and the 
supremacy of the moral law. 

Hardly had this astonishing consummation been 



JOHN HAY'S GOOD DEED 215 

reached when an explosion occurred and put it to 
a tragic test. 

German insolence was not the only provocation 
that led some of the Chinese to rise against the 
Europeans, but it was very enraging. Late in 
1897 two German missionaries were murdered in 
the province of Shan-Tung. This gave the trucu- 
lent young Kaiser, William II, the pretext he 
sought. He sent a German fleet to demand 
redress, and the Chinese Government, shorn of 
power to defend itself, granted to the Kaiser a 
ninety-nine years' lease of the very desirable port 
of Kiao-Chau and of much of the surrounding 
country. Thus Germany acquired a strong foot- 
hold on the Chinese coast and rapidly pushed her 
"sphere of influence" over the entire province of 
Shan-Tung. Thus, also, the Chinese learned to 
know the meaning of what the Germans called 
"a punitive expedition." 

During the two years following China herself 
became more and more enfeebled. The able and 
wily old Dowager Empress found herself shoved 
into the background by the young Emperor, 
Kwang-su, who had been brought up under 
European influences and was known as a reformer. 
His purpose seemed to be to transform China as 
fast as possible into an imitation of a European 



216 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

country; he welcomed foreigners to his council, 
approved of concessions, and so alarmed the con- 
servative Chinese that it was said they feared 
he would force them to take daily baths and to 
give up eating with chopsticks. 

To prevent this process of Europeanization, 
which threatened the integrity of the Chinese 
Empire, there arose several patriotic secret societies. 
The principal was I-ho-chuan, which means : "The 
Fists of Righteous Harmony," or fists clenched in 
righteous harmony to drive out the foreigners. 
Boxers fight with clenched fists, and so these con- 
spirators were called Boxers by the Europeans. 
Their methods were often cruel; their spirit was 
implacable; but they were as truly patriots as were 
the Yankees who, under Samuel Adams, John 
Hancock, and their accomplices, conspired to rescue 
the American Colonies from what they regarded 
as intolerable oppression. 

The Boxers were comparatively few in number, 
but as their work of extermination began with 
foreign missionaries it was well advertised, and it 
naturally exasperated the European Powers, who 
were disposed to make it an excuse for further 
exactions and for strengthening their hold on 
the concessions they had already acquired. No 
wonder that the Dowager Empress, in a secret 



JOHN HAY'S GOOD DEED 217 

edict to her viceroys on November 21, 1899, 
said: 

The various Powers cast upon us looks of tigerlike voracity, 
hustling each other in their endeavours to be the first to 
seize upon our innermost territories. They think that China, 
having neither money nor troops, would never venture to 
go to war with them. They fail to understand that there 
are certain things that this empire can never consent to, and 
that if hardly pressed upon we have no alternative but to 
rely upon the justice of our cause, the knowledge of which in 
our breasts strengthens our resolves and steels us to present 
a united front against our aggressors. 

During that winter and spring the Boxers con- 
tinued their attacks and outrages on the foreigners; 
the Empress seemed secretly to sympathize with 
them; and the foreign ministers kept up a rain of 
protests, in spite of which the outrages increased. 

Religion and superstition added fuel to the fires 
of Boxer patriotism. A drought fell on the country 
during the late spring and easily convinced the 
peasants that it signified the displeasure of the gods. 
The following "Sacred edict, issued by the Lord 
of wealth and happiness," shows how the people 
felt: 

The Catholic and Protestant religions, being insolent to 
the gods and destructive of holy things, rendering no obedi- 
ence to Buddhism and enraging both heaven and earth, the 
rain-clouds no longer visit us, but 8,000,000 Spirit Soldiers 
will descend from heaven and sweep the Empire clean of all 



218 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

foreigners. Then will the gentle showers once more water our 
lands; and, when the tread of soldiers and the clash of steel 
are heard, threatening woes to our people, then the Buddha's 
Patriotic League of Boxers will protect the Empire and bring 
peace to all. 

Hasten, then, to spread this doctrine far and wide; for 
if you gain one adherent to the faith, your own person will 
be absolved from all future misfortunes; if you gain five 
adherents to the faith, your whole family will be absolved 
from all evils; if you gain ten adherents to the faith, your 
whole village will be absolved from all calamities. Those 
who gain no adherents to the cause shall be decapitated; 
for, until all foreigners have been exterminated, the rain can 
never visit us. 

The bands of Boxers drew nearer and nearer to 
Peking, the capital city. The foreign ministers 
requested the Chinese Government to allow the 
marines from their respective warships to be sent 
up to guard them, but the negotiations dragged on. 
Suddenly, on May 27, 1900, the Boxers tore up 
the railway to Pao-ting Fu, burned the stations, 
and killed the employees. Without delay the 
ministers summoned the marines; none too soon, 
for the next day the other railroad line was de- 
stroyed, communication with Tientsin and the ports 
was cut and the siege began. All the foreigners 
and some, if not all, of the Chinese converts took 
refuge in the compound of the British Legation. 
The marines numbered about 450, and a hundred 
more men among the legationers completed the 



JOHN HAY'S GOOD DEED 219 

force that defended the foreigners during nearly 
ten weeks. The Boxers attacked them in vain 
during the first ten days; after that the army of 
the Chinese Government tried to overcome them. 
There were many women and children among the 
refugees in the British Legation, ministers of eleven 
nations, persons of fourteen nationalities — in all 
about a thousand foreigners, besides the two thou- 
sand native Christians. 

To the outside world nothing was more astonish- 
ing than the complete silence that surrounded the 
besieged legationers. No message was allowed to 
pass in to them; not a word came out from them. 
It was as if the earth had opened and swallowed 
them up and closed over them. Rescuing expedi- 
tions from Tientsin and the coast went in vain to 
relieve them. Week followed week without tid- 
ings; the suspense weighed like a nightmare on the 
world, and the world gradually believed that the 
legationers had all been massacred. 

Meanwhile they were defending themselves with 
the utmost valour. The women, young and old, 
and the non-combatants kept up their spirits with- 
out flinching, and even the ominous daily decrease 
of provisions, which meant the sure approach of 
starvation, did not dismay them. Our minister, 
General Conger, was an admirable leader; so were 



220 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

Sir Claude Macdonald, the British Minister; Sir 
Robert Hart, the head of the Chinese Customs 
service; and others. A good many died, and of 
course the little children suffered most of all. But 
the resolution of the legationers failed not. 

On June fifteenth, Secretary Hay, having a pre- 
sentiment that great danger was impending, cabled 
Minister Conger: 

Do you need more force? Communicate with the admiral 
and report. 

To this no answer came. Days passed, and still 
no answer. Other nations tried to reach their min- 
isters by telegraph, but their messages were lost 
in impenetrable silence, like pebbles dropped into 
the fathomless ocean. Not to be baffled Mr. Hay 
tried another means: He requested Li Hung 
Chang, the Chinese viceroy, of almost absolute 
power, to forward the following message through 
the Boxer lines to Conger in the legations: 

July n. Communicate tidings bearer. 

I do not know whether Li Hung Chang made an 
effort to send this message through or not. 

By this time the Chinese Government itself, not 
merely the Boxers, was conducting the siege of the 
legations; so that there is no doubt that if he had 



JOHN HAY'S GOOD DEED 221 

wished to do so the mighty viceroy could have 
communicated with Conger; but no reply came, 
and the world very generally accepted the rumour 
that all the persons in the legations had been mas- 
sacred. Secretary Hay alone remained firm in his 
belief that they were still alive. 

At last, on July twentieth, he received this des- 
patch dated July sixteenth: 

For one month we have been besieged in British Legation 
with shot and shell by Chinese troops. Quick relief only can 
prevent general massacre. 

This despatch came in the cipher of the State 
Department. Still many persons doubted its 
genuineness, arguing that if the Chinese had cap- 
tured the legations they might have found the 
American code book and used it. To make sure, 
Secretary Hay resorted to a clever device. On 
July twenty-first he cabled: 

Dispatch received. Authenticity doubted. Answer this, 
giving your sister's name. Report attitude and position of 
Chinese Government. 

The reply with the name of General Conger's 
sister came promptly, and proved that the lega- 
tioners were still alive. 

Quick relief was now imperative. And how 
quick able men can be soon appeared. Mr. Hay, 



222 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

on receiving Conger's message, immediately con- 
ferred with Elihu Root, the Secretary of War, 
whose office was in the other end of the State De- 
partment Building. Mr. Root summoned General 
Chaffee. They decided on the general character of 
the expedition; they got the approval of the Presi- 
dent, Mr. McKinley. The next morning General 
Chaffee was flying across the country in the fastest 
express to San Francisco. When he arrived there 
a ship was ready to take him across the Pacific. 
He reached China in time to lead the expeditionary 
force into Peking. 

The first reason for his haste was to deliver the 
legationers from starvation or slaughter. The 
next reason was to outspeed the expeditionary 
force that the German Emperor was sending out 
under Count Waldersee, who, if he arrived first on 
the ground, would take command of the forces and 
have given to the campaign an undesirable German 
twist. 

While General Chaffee was racing to the rescue 
Secretary Hay did not slacken his diplomatic efforts. 
He urged Mr. Wu, the Chinese Minister at Wash- 
ington, to persuade Viceroy Li Hung Chang that the 
ministers should be permitted to communicate freely 
with their governments; but for more than three 
weeks the wily Oriental evaded coming to a decision. 



JOHN HAY'S GOOD DEED 223 

On August fourteenth Mr. Hay received the fol- 
lowing cablegram from General Conger: 

Do not put trust in Li Hung Chang. He is an unscrupu- 
lous tool of the cruel Dowager. There can be no adequate 
negotiation with Peking until the high authors of the great 
crime have surrendered. Imperial troops firing on us daily. 
Our losses 60 killed, 120 wounded. We have reached half 
rations, horse flesh. Have food only for a fortnight. Six 
children have died. Many others sick. 

That same day the relief expedition arrived and 
saved the legationers. 

The Boxer Rising and the siege of the legations in- 
terrupted and put in great jeopardy the realization 
of Secretary Hay's Open-Door policy. Some of 
the Powers, which had acceded reluctantly, were 
glad of an excuse to withdraw. Even those that 
had been favourable now felt that China had been 
both slippery and ungrateful in return for their 
benevolence. 

Russia and Germany were the most intractable. 
Russia had counted on absorbing Manchuria. 
Germany, anxious lest she should not secure booty 
equal to her imperial pretensions and voracity, was 
now spurred on by a special grievance. During 
the upheaval her minister, Von Ketteler, was killed 
by a Chinese assassin. In accordance with the 
civilized Prussian ideas, therefore, his death must 



224 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

be avenged by slaying a large number of Chinese, 
whether they were guilty or innocent. 

In bidding his troops farewell as they sailed 
under Waldersee for China the Kaiser gave them 
instructions that surprised the world then, but 
are now seen to be wholly in keeping with his Hun- 
nish nature. He told his soldiery to behave like 
Huns, so that no Chinese would dare to look into 
the face of a German for a thousand years. They 
hardly needed this exhortation, for they took nat- 
urally to murder and outrage, to unspeakable 
cruelty toward women and little children, to pillage 
and wanton destruction. Waldersee's expedition 
seems in the retrospect to have been a rehearsal 
of the barbaric ferocity that the Germans practised 
on the Belgians and the French in August, 19 14. 

The situation was complicated by the fact that 
though the siege of the legations had been begun 
by the Boxers the Chinese Government itself was 
responsible for continuing it during two months. 
Indeed the Empress Dowager seems secretly to 
have befriended the Boxers from the start and, as 
their activity spread, to have instigated them to 
further violence. Her instigation may often have 
taken the form of doing nothing to arrest or to 
prevent them. 

The attempted extermination of foreigners hav- 



JOHN HAY'S GOOD DEED 225 

ing now failed, the Chinese Government tried to 
throw all the odium of it on the Boxers. American 
diplomacy as directed by Secretary Hay and Presi- 
dent McKinley had now two objects: It aimed 
at preventing the permanent military occupation 
of various parts of China by the armies of the 
European Relief Expedition, and at restoring in full 
vigour the rule of the Open Door. Peace and 
orderly government were, of course, presupposed. 
As officially expressed by acting Secretary of State 
Adee, we wished to "preserve Chinese territorial 
and administrative entity, protect all rights guar- 
anteed by treaty and international law to friendly 
Powers, and safeguard for the world the principle 
of equal and impartial trade with all parts of the 
Chinese Empire." [August 29, 1900.] 

Secretary Hay sent W. W. Rockhill, one of the 
ablest of our diplomats, to conduct negotiations, 
and Earl Li Hung Chang had charge of the Chinese 
interests. To maintain anything like harmony 
among the various foreign Powers was a hard task, 
which would not have been achieved if Mr. Hay 
had not resolutely insisted on it. 

Many months of discussion followed. Among 
the foreigners two opposing views clashed with 
each other. One party, which the Germans led, 
favoured inflicting upon the Chinese a paralyzing 



226 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

punishment; and under the guise of exacting stern 
retribution they would have robbed China of more 
territory and concessions. The other party, of 
which Hay was the spokesman for the United 
States, advocated the punishment of the instigators 
of the attacks on foreigners and on the legations, 
and of the known perpetrators of crimes and 
cruelty; but it fought to maintain the policy of the 
Open Door and to enable China to recover her 
independence and her status as an administrative 
entity. 

Mr. Rockhill carried out Secretary Hay's instruc- 
tions with so much discretion and urbanity that 
in the first weeks of the conference he seemed 
likely to secure the adoption of the American view 
with but little dissent; then, however, came Walder- 
see and the German soldiers, more than ready 
to obey the Kaiser's parting command to them 
to behave like Huns, and bringing with them the 
feeling — which had been popular in Europe when 
they embarked — that only by taking a terrible 
vengeance on the Chinese could the horrors that 
foreigners had suffered at their hands be atoned 
for. 

The Germans' bloody orgies were not only 
frightful to their victims, but also they greatly 
interfered with the smooth course of negotiations. 



JOHN HAY'S GOOD DEED 227 

Since Hay wished to save China he strove from 
the first to persuade the great viceroys that they 
should regard the foreign Powers as being friendly 
to her, even though he and the Europeans must 
insist on indemnity and punishment. Hay had 
brought them to accept this point of view when 
the Germans broke loose with their atrocities, 
and the Chinese, not being Germans or under- 
standing the barbaric psychology of the Germans, 
took this as a very strange way of showing friendli- 
ness. 

I cannot do better than to quote from a letter 
written at that time, in order to show how great 
a menace Waldersee and his Huns were to the 
successful conclusion of the negotiations. 

The extract is from one of Mr. Hay's own 
letters, dated October 16, 1900. He wrote: 

Everything appeared to be going well until this promenade 
of Waldersee's to Tao Ping, which I fear will have very un- 
favourable results upon the rest of China. The great viceroys, 
to secure whose assistance was our first effort and our success, 
have been standing by us splendidly for the past four months. 
How much longer they can hold their turbulent populations 
quiet in the face of constant incitements to disturbance 
which Germany and Russia are giving is hard to conjec- 
ture. . . . 

The success we had in stopping that first preposterous Ger- 
man movement when the whole world seemed likely to join 
in it, when the entire press of the Continent and a great 



228 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

many on this side were in favour of it, will always be a source 
of gratification. . . . The moment we acted the rest of 
the world paused, and finally came over to our ground; and 
the German Government, which is generally brutal but sel- 
dom silly, recovered its senses, climbed down off its perch, 
and presented another proposition, which was exactly in 
line with our position. 

Even as Hay was writing this letter, Lord 
Salisbury, the British Premier, and the German 
Ambassador to England were signing in London 
an agreement in which England and Germany 
agreed to uphold the Open-Door policy in China 
and pledged themselves not to use the existing 
abnormal complications as a pretext for obtaining 
for themselves any territorial advantages in the 
Chinese dominions. 

This agreement puzzled Hay, as well it might. 
In 19 1 8 there is a touch of humour in the fact that 
Germany chose England, of all countries, to be 
her partner. Hay cabled to the American diplo- 
mats in all the capitals of Europe to pry open this 
secret if they could, but they all were baffled. So 
far as I know neither country has made an official 
statement as to why they drew together; it has 
been whispered, however, that their mutual pur- 
pose was to check Russian aggression in Man- 
churia, and that Germany, fearing that the English 
intended to secure a monopoly of the Yang-tse 



JOHN HAY'S GOOD DEED 229 

Valley trade, thought the best way to prevent 
this was to bind England by secret agreement. 

One more quotation from Mr. Hay's private 
correspondence must complete my outline of his 
personal attitude toward the Chinese entangle- 
ment during the autumn of 1900. This final 
extract from a letter from Hay to Henry Adams, 
his most intimate friend, contains some phrases 
not likely to be forgotten : 

What a business this has been in China! So far we have 
got on by being honest and naif — I do not clearly see where 
we are to come the delayed cropper. But it will come. At 
least we are spared the infamy of an alliance with Germany. 
I would rather, I think, be the dupe of China than the chum 
of the Kaiser. Have you noticed how the world will take 
anything nowadays from a German? Biilow said yesterday 
in substance : " We have demanded of China everything we can 
think of. If we think of anything else we will demand that, 
and be d d to you" — and not a man in the world kicks. 

My heart is heavy about John Bull. Do you twig his 
attitude to Germany? When the Anglo-German pact came 
out I took a day or two to find out what it meant. I soon 
learned from Berlin that it meant a horrible practical joke 
on England. From London I found out what I had sus- 
pected, but what it astounded me, after all, to be assured of: 
That they did not know! Germany proposed it, they saw 
no harm in it, and signed. When Japan joined the pact I 
asked them why. They said: "We don't know, only if there 
is any fun going on we want to be in." Cassini [Russian 
Ambassador at Washington] is furious — which may be be- 
cause he has not been let into the joke. [November 21, 
19QO.] 



2 3 o VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

What a world of meaning Hay packs into the 
two sentences, "At least we are spared the infamy 
of an alliance with Germany. I would rather, I 
think, be the dupe of China than the chum of the 
Kaiser." To appreciate its full force you must 
remember that China was then ruled by the 
Dowager Empress, the wiliest and most unscrupu- 
lous monarch in the world, and that her chief 
minister was the Viceroy Li Hung Chang, who in 
cunning and shamelessness could have given points 
even to Bismarck. I have told elsewhere how 
Hay was one of the first to suspect German in- 
trigues in the United States, and how he repelled 
the Kaiser's reptilian efforts to circumvent the 
Monroe Doctrine. Here we see that as early as 
the year 1900 he penetrated the Kaiser's nature 
as well as his projects. To have understood Ger- 
man hypocrisy at a time when all the world was 
lauding Germany — and especially the United 
States, which through our Germanized professors 
was spreading the poison of German Kultur — 
will add lustre to John Hay's fame as the years 
go on. 

I need not give in detail the course of the negotia- 
tions. Among so many interested parties, holding 
divergent views, there was inevitably much con- 
tention, and the Chinese under the guidance of the 



JOHN HAY'S GOOD DEED 231 

cunning Li Hung Chang seized every means they 
could to lessen their penalties. At last, on Sep- 
tember 7, 1901, a protocol was signed, and ten 
days later the foreign garrisons withdrew from 
Peking. China had to pay an indemnity of about 
$333,000,000 to the Powers in compensation for 
the loss of their nationals, property, and interrup- 
tion of trade. Of this amount the United States 
received nearly $25,000,000. 

Owing to the failure of Russia to keep her 
promise to evacuate Manchuria irritation con- 
tinued in China after the other Powers had accepted 
the settlement and gone home. Always anxious 
lest some infringement of the Open-Door policy 
might lead to its destruction, Secretary Hay 
watched the Russian intrigues jealously. For a 
long time he could not unmask them. He had a 
fixed distrust of Russian diplomacy, and especially 
of Muravieff, who was then in the ascendant at 
St. Petersburg. Russian diplomacy, Hay said, 
always had a false bottom. Not until October 8, 
1903, was a treaty signed in which Russia agreed 
to the creation of Mukden and Antung as treaty 
ports. 

Here ended Mr. Hay's task for a while. No 
doubt, as has been remarked, if the United States 
had possessed a strong navy he would have been 



232 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

able to finish the business more rapidly and much 
more to the satisfaction of China and of justice. 

Japan, however, had a navy and an army, too, 
and she could not tolerate the presence of Russia 
as an overlord in Manchuria, the province that 
she herself had conquered in 1894 and still cov- 
eted. She now sought a reckoning with Russia, 
and four months later she and Russia were at war. 

During the Russo-Japanese War, which filled 
the last year of John Hay's life, he kept strictly 
neutral between the two belligerents and followed 
every move that might injure China. The Euro- 
pean Powers generally favoured Russia, if for no 
better reason than that the Russians were white 
men while the Japanese were yellow. American 
neutrality unquestionably strengthened our posi- 
tion with the other Powers and checked any 
desire any of them may have felt to meddle in the 
war. At the very outset the German Kaiser 
suggested "that we take the initiative in calling 
upon the Powers to use good offices to induce 
Russia and Japan to respect the neutrality of 
China outside the sphere of military operations." 
Mr. Hay, with President Roosevelt's approval, 
issued such a circular, substituting for the 
Kaiser's phrase "the administrative entity of 
China." Within ten days the Powers chiefly in- 



JOHN HAY'S GOOD DEED 233 

terested agreed in substance to the American 
circular. 

By the end of the year the European Powers, 
alarmed by the unexpected exhaustion of Russia, 
which was approaching collapse, were eager to 
bring about a peace, but neither Japan nor Russia 
was ready. On January 5, 1905, Hay writes in 
his diary: 

Sternburg [German Ambassador at Washington] wires 
the President that he communicated his views to the Emperor 
who requested him to telegraph the President: 

He is highly gratified to hear that you firmly adhere to 
the Open Door and uphold the actual integrity of China, 
which the Emperor believes at present to be gravely men- 
aced. Close observation of events has firmly convinced 
him that a powerful coalition, headed by France, is under 
formation, directed against the integrity of China and the 
Open Door. The aim of this coalition is to convince the 
belligerents that peace without compensation to the 
neutral Powers is impossible. The formation of this 
coalition, the Emperor firmly believes, can be frustrated 
by the following move: You should ask all Powers 
having interest in the Far East, including the minor ones, 
whether they are prepared to give a pledge not to demand 
any compensation for themselves in any shape, of territory, 
or other compensation, in China or elsewhere, for any 
service rendered to the belligerents in the making of peace 
or for any other reason. Such a request would force the 
Powers to show their hands, and any latent designs di- 
rected against the Open Door or integrity of China would 
immediately become apparent. Without this pledge the 
belligerents would find it impossible to obtain advantages 
without simultaneously provoking selfish aims of the neu- 



234 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

tral brokers. In the opinion of the Emperor, a grant of a 
certain portion of territory to both belligerents eventually 
in the north of China is inevitable. The Open Door within 
this territory might be maintained by treaty. Germany, 
of course, would be then first to pledge herself to this 
policy of disinterestedness. 

Sternburg then says he is also impressed with the danger 
of such demands of neutrals — asks a reply. 

President Roosevelt agreed with Mr. Hay "that 
it would be best to take advantage of the Kaiser's 
proposition: ist, to nail the matter with him and, 
2d, to ascertain the views of the other Powers." 

Accordingly the Secretary sent off the "Self- 
denying Circular." On January eighteenth Eng- 
land and Italy acceded; on the nineteenth France 
joined; and on the twentieth Germany expressed 
official gratification that the United States "have 
resolved to take steps to maintain the integrity 
of China and the Open Door, and at our promise 
not to make territorial acquisition — which corre- 
sponds entirely to attitude of German Emperor." 

Hay adds in his diary: 

What the whole performance meant to the Kaiser it is 
difficult to see. But there is no possible doubt that we have 
scored for China. 

Subsequently Hay feared that the Kaiser 

"still insists upon the fact of the combination of France, Eng- 
land, and Russia to partition China. He says he was asked 



JOHN HAY'S GOOD DEED 235 

to join, but indignantly refused, and that our circular of 
January thirteenth gave the scheme the coup de grace." 

This was indeed, as Hay remarked, a strange 
incident which makes one wonder. Perhaps the 
Kaiser suspected that the three Powers were going 
to cut up China without giving him a share. 
Perhaps he wished to snub England and France, 
with whom he was not then on good terms. 
Perhaps he was simply carrying out the role of 
startler, which he had adopted and was playing 
to his own amusement at that time. Whatever 
his motive, it fell in with Hay's rooted policy of 
safeguarding China. 

This was the last time that Hay struck a blow 
in her behalf. For more than a year his health 
had been failing; now it broke down and his doctors 
ordered him to Europe in the hope that rest would 
help him — but in vain; he came home in June, and 
died on July 1, 1905. 

Some critics will now tell you that his greatest 
achievement in statesmanship — the saving of China 
and the policy of the Open Door — has already 
become dimmed. China exists, to be sure, as an 
"administrative entity," but in so precarious a 
state that if the European Powers had not during 
the past ten years turned their attention with 
feverish stimulation to European quarrels they 



236 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

might have dismembered China in spite of John 
Hay's example. The doctrine of the Open Door 
also still survives after a fashion, but it no longer 
seems to be accepted as a cardinal point in inter- 
national law that concerns China. 

They who criticize thus, however, and think 
that this is all, leave out of the account the most 
precious factor — the ideal. For, in his dealings 
with China, John Hay, for the first time in modern 
statesmanship, applied on a large scale the Golden 
Rule. Here was a nation of four hundred million 
people round whom were gathered the representa- 
tives of the European nations like so many Shy- 
locks, each with his long-bladed keen knife, intent 
on cutting the largest slice he could from the 
stricken and apparently dying giant; and the 
American spokesman among them persuaded them 
to stay their hands, to allow China to live and, 
still more, to live under such conditions that she 
might regain strength to control herself. The mem- 
ory of this act shall not pass away, and though 
statesmen may often fall below that standard the 
American ideal as realized by Hay will judge them 
and will incite them to imitation. 

The gratitude of the Chinese, which endures 
after twenty years, completes a noble record. 
They still point to that example of American 



JOHN HAY'S GOOD DEED 237 

statecraft as a model of generosity, disinterested- 
ness, and justice, and only recently they have 
erected a monument to John Hay as a thank offer- 
ing. That this country returned more than half 
of the indemnity, on finding it was too large, 
deserves also to be remembered. 

Let us Americans hope that in the great diplo- 
matic settlement by which at the end of this war 
the numberless tangled and ugly racial and political 
quarrels are to be adjusted, the spokesmen of the 
United States may worthily imitate their fore- 
runner, John Hay. Only by so doing can they 
establish the Open Door through which Peace 
shall enter to bless and rule the world. 



IX 

CAMPAIGNING FOR DUPES: ARE YOU ONE? 1 

WHEN a swindler goes about his work, he 
takes it for granted that there is a certain 
number of persons whom he can dupe. The 
number may be larger or smaller, but he is certain 
that it exists, and he sets his traps to catch as 
many victims as he can. His trap may be simply 
a gold brick, or a roll of counterfeit banknotes, 
if he preys on the most gullible; or it may be a 
seductive brokers circular, if he is gunning for 
persons who have more dollars than wits; or it 
may be the prospectus of a quack medicine. It 
has remained for our time to witness the greatest 
swindle of all — that of the cunning rulers of a 
vast empire who, in their desperation, hope to win 
by deceit the victory which they could not win by 
war. 

Their trick is so novel that although we have 
been put on our guard, we cannot too often expose 
it, until we are sure that it has failed. Four years 

^his appeared in the North American Review for October, 1918, under 
the title "A Judas Peace." Copyrighted by the North American Review 
Publishing Company. 

238 



CAMPAIGNING FOR DUPES 239 

ago, in August, 1914, the German Emperor and 
his wicked ring of militarists and capitalists 
plunged the world into a war by which they 
planned and fully expected to conquer it. They 
calculated on taking Paris and destroying France 
in three weeks, and then they intended to turn 
against Russia, and to shatter her power before 
the snow fell. 

They were wonderful calculators, those Ger- 
mans, and on paper they could reduce everything 
to their will, down to the fraction of millimetres 
or grams; but the minds and souls and consciences 
of non-Germans they could not penetrate. "Every 
man imputes himself," said Tennyson, and the 
Kaiser and his ring imputed to the peoples whom 
they went forth to blast the base fears, the cring- 
ing and the deceit, which they themselves would 
resort to if they were threatened by an im- 
mensely overwhelming enemy. Thanks, however, 
to the heroic sense of honour and of duty of Albert, 
the King of the Belgians, thanks, also, to the 
glorious valour of the handful of Belgian troops 
who defended Liege and delayed the onrushing 
German hosts, the Kaiser's boastful scheme of 
capturing Paris was undone: he did not dine there 
on August 15th, Napoleon's birthday; he has not 
dined there since; nor is he likely ever to enter 



2 4 o VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

the French capital again, unless it be as a prisoner. 
Joffre allowed the invaders to come as near Paris 
as he needed to carry out his strategy, and then 
the incomparable Foch drove through their centre, 
and they reeled back to the Aisne, halfway to the 
German borders. 

If the Germans' reason for going to war had 
been sincere, they might have stopped after the 
Marne; because in the forty days' campaign it had 
been made perfectly evident that France and 
Russia had had no intention of attacking Germany, 
and that they would gladly return to peace if the 
German assailants withdrew to their own country 
and gave up fighting. The reason alleged by the 
Germans, however, was a lie; they pretended 
that they were bent on defending Germany from 
aggression; the real purpose in their heart was to 
attain world dominion. 

After the battle of the Marne, therefore, seeing 
themselves baffled in getting world dominion by 
the direct way, they decided to get it by the 
indirect way. This consisted in achieving their 
Middle-Europe project by which, through the aid 
of their vassals — Austria, Bulgaria, and Turkey — 
they should rule the Balkans, and western Asia 
from Constantinople to Bagdad. Through bribery 
and the suborning of treason they destroyed 



CAMPAIGNING FOR DUPES 241 

Russia's armies and instigated the revolution 
which deposed the Czar, and left Russia disunited 
and without an orderly government. Germany 
found ready tools in the Bolshevist leaders, and 
seized large tracts of Russia which she now included 
in the Middle-Europe Empire. 

The dominion of Middle Europe being thus 
actually established, and having a population of 
two hundred million or more inhabitants, Ger- 
many sought for peace. She let it be whispered 
that she would consent to certain restitutions in 
Belgium, France, and Italy — and why should 
she not consent? From Middle Europe she could 
raise an army of twenty million soldiers, and take 
back whatever she might grant to the Allies for 
the sake of securing an immediate peace. Let 
peace once come on her terms and she would be 
able to smash France and Italy and even to over- 
come England at her pleasure. 

This was the first German peace drive nearly 
two years ago, and it did not succeed, because the 
Western Powers saw through its deceit. Ever 
since then the Germans have attempted to catch 
the civilized nations by it. Any ruse that would 
leave Germany in possession of Middle Europe 
would leave her despot of the world. Owing to 
her incapacity to understand foreign nations, she 



242 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

suffered an amazing surprise in April, 1917, when 
the United States entered the war against her. 
The Kaiser and his parrots pretended that this was 
of no importance, that the Americans were merely 
bluffing, that they had no army, and that even if 
they raised one the American soldiers were too 
cowardly to fight. 

Woe to the ruler who feeds lies to his people! 
Some Germans there must have been who, like 
Belshazzar's courtiers, saw the terrible writing on 
the wall. Even the most truculent of the Prus- 
sians recognized that before the Americans were 
prepared to come in, in force, Germany, having 
failed to entice the Allies into a negotiated peace, 
must crush them on the battlefield. They under- 
took to carry out this last desperate plan by their 
drive which began on March 21, 191 8, and was fol- 
lowed by several others in which at great cost they 
drove back both the French and the British armies. 
Then they were checked. On July 15, Foch de- 
livered a counter-stroke which stunned them and 
he has rained blow after blow on them ever since, 
not merely causing them to abandon most of the 
territory they had conquered since March, but 
teaching them the habit of retreating, which they 
learned with the efficiency to be expected of such 
thorough-going and docile scholars. 



CAMPAIGNING FOR DUPES 243 

The Allied victory — for it is already a real vic- 
tory, inasmuch as it has proved that the Germans 
cannot win in battle — has led them to resort again 
to peace propaganda. Since the time of Frederick 
the Great, force and mendacity have been the two 
chosen weapons of Prussia, and in this atrocious 
war they have gained more by mendacity — which 
includes bribery, corruption, deceit, and plain lies 
— than by force. 

What is it they hope to achieve by mendacity 
now? They hope to fool the Allied nations into 
accepting terms of peace by which not only Prus- 
sian militarism, the ascendency of the Junkers, 
the autocracy of the Hohenzollern, and the ruth- 
lessness of the commercial and industrial ring, 
typified in Ballin, shall remain undisturbed, but 
also their Middle Europe Empire shall stand 
unshaken. How can they expect to accomplish 
this, you may well ask; how can any Allied minis- 
ters or public men be such fools as to fall into this 
obvious German trap? The answer is clear; there 
is probably not an Allied Cabinet Minister, in 
Europe or here, who is fooled, but they are all in 
bondage to public opinion; and if the public opin- 
ion which sways them demands peace on any terms 
there is danger that they will listen and submit. 

So the Germans aim their campaign of mendac- 



244 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

ity, not against the Cabinet officers, but against 
the people in the Allied countries. They count 
on winning over enough men and women to turn 
the decision in their favour. In short, they reckon 
that every country has a large number of dupes. 
Are you one? When their propaganda reaches 
you in some sly and seductive disguise, are you the 
sort of person who will be caught by it? Shall 
you say: "That sounds reasonable and just; why 
shouldn't it be carried out?" 

Apparently the Germans have decided to employ 
two forms of appeal — the pious and the pathetic. 
They have already begun to work several varieties 
of pious appeal, all of which are based on the New 
Testament and the doctrines of Christ. Months 
ago clergymen, who were secretly pro-German or 
pacifist, began to utter in many parts of this coun- 
try the warning that as Christ bids us to love our 
neighbours, when the time comes to end the war 
we must not be harsh or vindictive toward the Ger- 
mans, but must forgive and forget their crimes and 
atrocities. Even admitting that the Germans did 
wrong, they continue, we must take them back 
into our confidence and esteem; otherwise we 
should do wrong and two wrongs do not make a 
right. In the parable of the prodigal son did not 



CAMPAIGNING FOR DUPES 245 

Jesus teach that the sinner must not only be for- 
given, but feasted and made much of? 

When I have dissented from this application of 
Christ's parable, I have been asked by ministers 
whose sincerity was above suspicion: "But must 
we not distinguish between the crime and the 
criminal? Can we not love the criminal though 
we hate his crime?" I have observed in most 
cases that parsons who endeavour to make this 
distinction usually minimize the crime and white- 
wash the criminal. They leave on their congrega- 
tion the impression that, after all, we must not be 
too hard on the Germans, they are so much like 
the rest of us. 

Now ministers of Christ, of whatever creed, who 
talk in this loose way sin against Justice, and Jus- 
tice is a very holy ideal planted by God in the human 
soul. Whoever denies or perverts Justice, sins 
against God. 

Of all persons, one would think clergymen should 
be the last to shake popular respect for the few 
elemental ideals on which civilization rests — ideals 
among which Justice is the most essential. For 
the men who devote their lives especially to cher- 
ishing and teaching the sacred things of the spirit 
ought to know by what long and painful stages 
each of the ideals came to be recognized and then 



246 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

revered by men. Nothing could be more wanton 
or more impious than to cast away on the caprice 
of a moment the ideal for which the ages have 
groaned in travail, and thousands — it may be 
myriads — have sacrificed their lives. 

Yet this is what any one does who proposes to 
leave Justice out of the count. For a half century 
past mawkish sentimentalists have winced at seeing 
Justice done; they send flowers to atrocious crim- 
inals in prison, or sign petitions to have them par- 
doned and released. They lay stress on any trifle 
to extenuate, to palliate, to excuse. Unless the 
respect for Justice be quickened, morals will vanish 
from among men, for Justice is the backbone of 
morals, and without morals civilization dies. 

What shall we say, then, for those persons who 
urge or insidiously suggest that we hold back the 
hand of Justice when we come to the great day 
of reckoning with Germany? They would make 
us abettors of the most awful criminals in history, 
and they would mask their baseness by quoting 
from the New Testament the admonition to love 
our enemies. 

Whoever reads Christ's utterances, however, 
will discover that he never sanctions the surrender 
of the moral law. In every one of his precepts 
he assumes that the Divine Justice operates 



CAMPAIGNING FOR DUPES 247 

throughout the universe. Never for a moment 
does He command you to stand by and see evil 
done to others; on the contrary, He presupposes 
that you will and must defend the great principles 
of God to the death, as He himself did. He was 
not the spineless, mushy moralist whom the paci- 
fists have tried to palm off upon us. In all the 
books of religion there are no condemnations so 
terrible as His. 

Listen to Him, if you have any doubt: "And 
Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in 
the midst of them . . . Whoso shall offend 
one of these little ones which believe in me, it were 
better for him that a millstone were hanged about 
his neck, and that he were drowned in the depths 
of the sea." {Matthew, xvn, 2-6.) 

How do the apologists of the Germans reconcile 
this with the slaughter of a million or more little 
children — defenceless and unoffending, in Belgium, 
in France, in Poland, in Serbia, in Russia, in Ar- 
menia — by Germans or at their instigation? At 
this hour, many thousands, torn from their parents, 
are wandering helpless and uncomforted over 
Europe, or waiting in refuges opened for them by 
compassionate French and Americans. If we are 
to believe Christ, each of these little ones is like 
a millstone hanged about the neck of the Kaiser, 



248 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

since he it was who commanded or sanctioned these 
atrocities. He has out-Heroded Herod; for the 
innocents whom Herod slew numbered only a few 
hundred, but the Kaiser's victims surpass a million. 
What comfort can the scribes and hypocrites of 
bur time draw from the Christ who said to their 
predecessors: "Ye serpents, ye generation of 
vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell ?" 
{Matthew, xxm, 33.) Or was it a mild man who 
approved the judgment of the master of the un- 
profitable servant that he should be cast into outer 
darkness: "there shall be weeping and gnashing 
of teeth." {Matthew, xxv, 30.) Jesus never 
slackened in his condemnation of the scribes — 
"Which devour widows' houses and for a pretense 
make long prayers: these shall receive greater dam- 
nation." {Mark, xii, 40.) When the wicked 
husbandmen slew the heir of the vineyard, their 
employer should come and destroy them {Mark, 
xii, 9) — very different doctrine from the behest 
to turn the other cheek. Jesus told his disciples 
that it would be better in the day of judgment for 
Sodom and Gomorrah than for the city which re- 
fused to listen to their teaching {Matthew, x, 15). 
With sternness still more awful, he foretold that 
the Son of Man shall send forth his angels to gather 
"all things which offend and them which do in- 



CAMPAIGNING FOR DUPES 249 

iquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire; 
there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." 
{Matthew, xm, 41-42.) 

In vain do those who would rescue the Huns 
from the Nemesis which is overtaking them appeal 
to the pacifism of Christ. They wilfully mis- 
interpret, and their misinterpretation is impious. 
Christ never taught that a man should stand by 
and see a ruffian attack a woman, or a brute mal- 
treat a child, or that a murderer should be let off. 
Christ did not hesitate to use a scourge on the 
money-changers in the Temple. He could never 
have been the supreme spokesman of the Divine 
Love if he had not also revered the Divine 
Justice. 

I do not think that the propaganda of pacifists 
and secret pro-Germans will fool the American 
people into believing that Christ would condone 
the unspeakable crimes of the Germans, or that he 
would approve of forgiving and forgetting at the 
expense of Divine Justice. The Devil can cite 
Scripture for his purpose. Has not Bernhardi 
brazenly argued: " Christ himself said: f I am not 
come to send peace on earth but a sword/ . . . 
Thus, according to Christianity, we cannot dis- 
approve of war in itself, but must admit it is 
justified morally and historically." 



250 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

Let us, therefore, be on our guard against Ger- 
man and pacifist interpretations of the spirit of 
Christ's teaching. And if we doubt the validity 
of the Christian code, let us turn to the Pagan, for 
example. How have we advanced, if our rever- 
ence for Justice falls short of the Roman father and 
judge two thousand years ago, who condemned 
his own son to death ? Let Justice be done though 
the heavens fall. 

We have glanced at the Pious Appeal, let us 
turn now to the Pathetic Appeal. This is to be 
concocted for the wives and mothers of American 
soldiers to swallow. Their heartstrings are to be 
wrung. "Why," they are to be asked, "should 
you go on bearing the suspense of having your 
husbands and sons at the front ? Why should you 
sink in grief as news comes of their death, leaving 
you to live out a broken-hearted existence? You 
ought no longer to suffer, because there is no longer 
reason to continue the war. The Germans are 
ready to stop. They offer to restore Belgium, 
they will give back Alsace-Lorraine to France, 
they will satisfy Italy. Why then prolong the 
bloodshed, the agony, the horrors? The Germans 
themselves deplore this. If the Allies persist, will 
not the guilt fall on them ? If America keeps on, 



CAMPAIGNING FOR DUPES 251 

does it not confirm the German charge that it is 
you and the Allies, not they, who are filled with the 
lust of war, and the desire for conquest?" 

In some such form as this, women of America, 
the Germans will frame their serpent argument for 
you, and they think so meanly of your intelligence 
and of your spirit that they expect to make you 
their accomplices. How little they know you! 
They suppose that your courage has been worn 
down under the strain of absence and the shock 
of bereavement. Their psychologists have told 
them that you are volatile, nervous, fond of luxury 
and comfort, and unable to endure hardship; there- 
fore, they expect that you will be their easy dupes, 
and echo their desperate cry for peace. 

What have you done to justify any one in imput- 
ing to you such baseness? From the day we en- 
tered the war until now, who has heard you murmur 
or complain ? If you have shed tears, nobody has 
seen them. I have known many mothers who 
have been as eager as their sons to have them go, 
and many wives who would have cut out their 
tongues rather than have urged their husbands 
to hold back. No! The patriotic resolution of 
American women has already had immense influ- 
ence. Our troops in the field feel that influence 
supporting them, and it will never flag. Dur- 



252 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

ing our Civil War, fifty years ago, it was the women, 
North and South, who held out steadfastly to the 
end. It was not women, but men — Copperheads, 
Knights of the Golden Circle, and mongrels of all 
sorts who traitorously tried to stop the war; just 
as in these days it has been men, who in the House 
of Representatives and in the Senate of the United 
States have attempted, by their reptilian votes, to 
paralyze the arm of President Wilson and further 
the interests of the Kaiser. 

As the needs have grown during the struggle, 
British women, without parade or self-glorification, 
have sprung forward to fill the occupations left 
vacant by the men gone to the front. How magni- 
ficent have been the women of France, without 
whose service the harvests which were to feed the 
French armies could never have been reaped ! Oh, 
the indomitable, patient, devoted, faithful women 
of France, worthy kindred of the immortal Joan ! 
Let us never doubt that, if the call comes, the 
American women will match the heroism and forti- 
tude of their sisters overseas. The expert psycholo- 
gists, on whom the Kaiser and his staff depend 
when they weave their plots against the honour 
and life of foreign peoples, are as imbecile as were 
the astrologers whom superstitious despots at- 
tached to their courts and consulted four hundred 



CAMPAIGNING FOR DUPES 253 

years ago. By what trick of irony has Fate, which 
allowed Germany to make her way in peace by 
means of her pedants, brought it about that her 
pedants should work her undoing? 

The women of the Allied countries will be the 
less likely to be inveigled into any hysterical 
movement for premature peace, when they re- 
member the unwomanly, nay, the inhuman, con- 
duct of the German women. Friends of mine 
spent a week at Evian-les-Bains, the French town 
on Lake Geneva, to which long trains of repatries 
come twice a day with their carloads of human 
wrecks, who have passed through the Inferno of 
German prisons and detention — through starva- 
tion, abuse, and persecution. Many of them 
are far gone in consumption; all of them are so 
emaciated and spent that they can be of no further 
use in the war, if ever again on earth. The Ger- 
mans send them, not out of compassion, but in 
order to save the bare pittance of food, by which 
they have carried out their Satanic policy of slow 
starvation; they send them also as a warning to 
the French people and soldiers of the terrors 
which await them if they are captured by the 
Germans, or if Germany wins. The German 
psychologists, however, fail again, for the French, 
instead of being terrorized at the sight of these 



254 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

victims of Teutonic cruelty, are simply stirred to 
redouble their efforts to wipe out the Hun. " 

My Red Cross friends attended the coming of 
each train at Evian, and did what they could to 
comfort the victims. They took special pains 
to hear the stories of the women, whom they ques- 
tioned separately so as to get the experiences of 
each before she had concerted with the others a 
uniform story. Every French woman reported 
that when they came to a station in Germany, 
and had to get out of the train, they found the 
platform crowded with German women, who spat 
in their faces and beat them with their fists, and 
cursed them, and otherwise maltreated them. 
My friends noticed that the little French children, 
on landing on the platform at Evian, all instinc- 
tively held their little arms in front of their faces; 
they, too, had been pounded and spat upon by 
the German women. When a race of women 
practises such abominable cowardice on defence- 
less little children, what wonder that their husbands 
and sons in the German army commit atrocities 
and gloat over them. 

The women of America will not be duped by 
the German drive for a Judas peace, because they 
are intelligent, and because, also, their hearts 
cannot be deceived. How could a mother who 



CAMPAIGNING FOR DUPES 255 

has lost a son, or a wife who has lost a husband in 
the war, consent to a scheme which would render 
such losses vain? A year or two ago many 
Americans were asking: "Why should we go into 
the war?" Everybody knows why now. Erom 
the moment when our first units of strong, 
clean, chivalrous, honour-loving American soldiers 
reached the front, saw the ruin and devastation, 
saw the barbaric methods of the Hun fighters, 
they understood the reason. I have read letters 
from more than one of these young fellows, who 
had only a hazy idea of what the war was about 
when they left home, but who on witnessing the 
horrors said: "We must put this thing down 
forever, and we will fight until it is put down, if it 
takes a long lifetime." I have heard a Canadian 
Cabinet member say: "It may require three years 
or five or more, but what is any brief length of 
time compared with all the future? Although 
our whole generation has to be sacrificed, we 
must save posterity from the Prussian terror." 
And in quite the same vein, a restrained, quiet, 
and very earnest French professor said to me: 
"Do not suppose that France will let up until we 
have swept away the possibility that this awful 
wat'will have to be fought over again by our 
children." It is estimated that three million 



256 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

civilized men have already laid down their lives 
in France in order to defeat the Hun, to liberate 
mankind from the incubus of Prussian militarism, 
and to make the world safe for Democracy. They 
died willingly, bravely, but every one of them 
would rise in his grave if he knew that the great 
object for which he gave his life was to be wrecked 
by cunning and mendacious diplomats. Over 
the grave of a British soldier in France is carved 
this epitaph, which is all the more poignant be- 
cause it is so simple: 

When you go home, tell them of us and say: 
" For your to-morrow they gave their to-day." 

Woe unto us, if we lose through dullness or neg- 
ligence the to-morrow which these millions of 
brave men sacrificed their lives to secure for us. 

They believed that their cause would triumph, 
because they believed that Justice abides in the 
heart of the world. Let us not confuse Justice 
with Vengeance. Very few of the men, living 
or dead, who have fought to save civilization have 
been vindictive. Very few have cried out for 
revenge. It seems as if all were aware that a 
greater than Man would punish. "Vengeance 
is mine; I will repay," saith the Lord. 

But each of the dead would be amazed to hear 



CAMPAIGNING FOR DUPES 257 

any one assert that the wicked must not have 
justice meted out to them. Some of the evil 
propagandists have so lost contact with morality 
that they appear to argue that when a criminal's 
iniquities surpass all bounds, we must not think 
of condemning him, much less of punishing him, 
but that we must forgive him and take him back 
into our friendship. If a private individual should 
torment and slay a little child, or outrage a woman, 
or murder an old man, Justice would most properly 
seize and punish him. How can it be, therefore, 
that we should absolve the Kaiser, who, through 
his agents, has committed these crimes a million 
fold. Only the other day (August 30) the Cologne 
Folks Zeitung, one of the chief organs of Ger- 
man Kultur, said of the German practice of Fright- 
fulness: "Much as we detest it as human beings 
and as Christians, yet we exult in it as Germans" 

This war can never end in a just peace until the 
German shall be forced to pay for everything which 
can be paid for. He has sunk fourteen million 
tons of the world's shipping, and he exults in this 
enormous crime; but Justice will not be placated 
until he has paid back ton for ton. He has ravaged 
thousands of square miles of French and Belgian, 
Polish and Serbian territory; he has laid Armenia 



258 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

waste, he has damaged Italy. So far as material 
devastation and losses can be paid for and restored, 
he shall pay for them. The great spiritual calami- 
ties which he has brought upon the world, the 
doctrines of inhumanity and mendacity which he 
has shed over it like a poisonous gas, the in- 
numerable bereavements, the blighting and shat- 
tering of millions of families, the heartaches and 
sufferings of the myriads who survive to lead 
crippled lives, these concerns of the spirit cannot 
be compensated in money. These things we leave 
to the vengeance of God. 

Pacifists, and all those who would shield Ger- 
many from the penalty of her crimes, protest 
that it will take fifty years for her to make retribu- 
tion. Well, what of it, be it fifty years or five 
hundred? Destiny waited three hundred and 
thirty years from the landing of the first slave in 
Baltimore to the emancipation of the last slave 
in the United States. During entire centuries 
men thought that the crime had been forgotten, 
and then the Divine Wrath, after a tremendous 
war, collected the bill. 

Forgetful is green earth; the Gods alone 
Remember everlastingly; they strike 
Remorselessly, and ever like for like 

By their great memories the Gods are known. 



CAMPAIGNING FOR DUPES 259 

The German people went into the Atrocious 
War not only willingly but eagerly. For thirty 
years they had been taught to look forward to it, 
as the means whereby they should increase their 
wealth and power. Their Prussian rulers had al- 
ways conducted war as a major form of piracy, 
and the Germans had come to regard it as a 
legitimate means to gain. This time the lure 
held up before them was World Dominion, and 
when the Allies dashed their hope of a swift victory, 
Helfferich, the German Minister of Finance, ex- 
horted them to hold on, because, he assured them, 
the Allies would be beaten and be forced to pay 
such vast indemnities, that every German man, 
woman, and child and his descendants would be 
rich forever. And now, when the German military 
chance of conquering the world and appropriating 
its wealth has vanished, we are asked to forgive 
the German nation which, for the sake of its selfish 
greed, heartlessly brought havoc and destruction 
upon the earth. It may not be: for the judgments 
of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. Ger- 
many did not take care that the wrongs she planned 
should be limited in time or extent; she deliberately 
intended to make the rest of mankind her vassals 
forever. Half a century seems a very brief period 
in which to expiate her unspeakable guilt. 



26o VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

Six months ago, we still heard, even from persons 
in high places, that the German army could never 
be beaten, and that therefore the Allies must have 
resort to a negotiated peace. This opinion, how- 
ever, was based on a misconception of where the 
vital point of the struggle lay. As the Germans 
seized province after province, state after state, 
and especially as they dissolved Russia by their 
corruption, and annexed the huge fragments 
which composed it, our doubters lost heart, and 
talked of peace. 

But from the beginning of the war the vital spot 
has been the western front; for in war the object 
is to destroy the enemy's army, not to take his 
territory. If you destroy his army, you can take 
whatever territory you choose. The case is not 
unlike that of an octopus which clutches spoils 
in its tentacles. You may find it hard to cut each 
off, but if you pierce the heart of the monster, all 
the tentacles will relax and the spoils will drop 
from them. This is what will happen when the 
Allied armies destroy the great German army on 
the west. Belgium, France, the Ukraine, and 
all Middle Europe will slip out of the Teutonic 
control, and the Hun menace to civilization will 
be laid. 

As I write this, the German army has already 



CAMPAIGNING FOR DUPES 261 

been driven back, and unless some incredible 
disaster to the Allies should supervene, the Teutons 
are inevitably beaten in the field. That the Ger- 
man despots understand this is proved by their 
frantic efforts to secure peace by chicane. Only 
by listening to their guile, and by being duped 
into accepting a part to-day, when they could 
have the whole to-morrow, could the Allies lose 
the certain victory which awaits them. 

We must not slacken our preparation; we must 
push on with larger and larger forces, and never 
allow the wily Huns to imagine that we are war- 
weary or downhearted or willing to compromise. 
During the latter part of the year 1864, also, 
there were doubters, cowards, and friends of the 
enemy, who still beset President Lincoln with 
declarations that the Civil War was a failure 
and that he must make peace. But he knew better. 
He saw that the end was near, and he hastened 
to attain it. No man hated war more than he did, 
no man's heart bore a heavier burden of grief than 
his did; but he would not betray his country and 
the world in order to silence the clamours of 
sentimentalists or of the shallow-brained. 

Of all great national rulers, none has surpassed 
Lincoln in a sense of justice. The words which he 
spoke to our fathers in their crisis were so just 



262 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

that they apply equally to us in our crisis, and 
we can conceive of no similar ordeal in which they 
will not be most pertinent. Therefore, I quote 
Lincoln's immortal passage: 

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this 
mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if 
God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the 
bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil 
shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the 
lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was 
said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, "The 
^ judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." 

In conclusion, let me commend the serious 
reading of this passage to those who have been 
appealing to Lincoln's phrase: "With malice 
toward none, with charity for all," in their en- 
deavour to incline the heart of the American nation 
to a peace framed in the interests of the Hun, and 
those who are urging us to make the way of the 
German transgressors easy. I do not believe 
that the United States and the civilized world 
can be duped to their destruction. 



X 

OUT OF THEIR OWN MOUTHS 1 

I 

THOSE who are not with us are against us. 
Never before in human history has the choice 
of Man and Nation been as sharply defined as it is 
to-day. The future of mankind depends upon 
this choice. There have been earlier crises out 
of which human fate proceeded in new directions; 
but the contestants in those conflicts understood 
only obscurely, if at all, the ultimate stakes for 
which they were fighting. We can plead no such 
ignorance. We know the issue, and whither it 
leads. 

Those who are not with us are against us. On 
which side do we stand ? As Americans, we assume 
that we stand for Civilization. That is our in- 
heritance. What do we mean by Civilization? 
Surely not mere comforts, astonishing improve- 



'"Out of Their Own Mouths, Utterances of German Rulers, Statesmen, 
Savants, Publicists, Journalists, Poets, Business Men, Party Leaders, and 
Soldiers." Edited by Professor Munroe Smith, of Columbia University. 
Preface by W. R. Thayer. Republished by permission of D. Appleton & Com- 
pany, New York, 19 17. 

263 



264 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

ments in invention, or even the great discoveries 
of science which affect only the body and not the 
soul of man. We mean the recognition of Justice, 
a keener sensitiveness to Mercy, an undying 
devotion to Liberty, a quickened conscience which 
makes us shrink from doing unto any one that 
which we should not wish him to do to us. These 
are the ideals of Civilization and this is the spirit 
in which alone it can flourish. Erudition, though 
its books were piled higher than the Tower of 
Babel, does not constitute it; nor does ability 
to make great cannon, or chemicals, or military 
engines; much less is the proof of Civilization 
to be found in the power to convert millions of men 
into mere machines, unfree, shorn of humanizing 
emotions, abjectly obedient to the will, however 
wicked, of the despot who owns them. 

If at the beginning of the Atrocious War, 
Civilization and Barbarism had stood embodied 
in forms revealing the very nature of each, there 
can be no doubt as to which we would have chosen. 
But the majority of mankind lack imagination — 
that quality which penetrates to the heart and 
essence; the majority live only on the surface, a 
life of two dimensions, without depth. And in 
this case many influences worked deliberately to 
blur or hide the nature of the antagonists. The 



OUT OF THEIR OWN MOUTHS 265 

Prussian agents over here and our native apolo- 
gists for Prussia were greatly helped by the fact 
that, as a people, we are not cruel and that we do 
not lie. The average American had never dreamed 
that creatures wearing the shape of men could 
conceive, much less commit, such horrors and 
bestialities as were devised in cold blood by the 
German General Staff. So our people heard 
with mingled shock and incredulity the first 
accounts of Hunnish atrocities. It took a long 
time and repeated abominations before we came 
to believe the truth. 

Meanwhile the German propagandists increased 
doubt here by brazenly declaring that the stories 
of atrocities were concocted by their enemies; 
and when this impudence began to fail them they 
proclaimed that, "After all, war is war"; and 
they ransacked history for instances of cruelty 
perpetrated by other races, including ourselves, 
in earlier times. In mendacity, too, they found 
us as easy to deceive as children are by a juggler's 
tricks. 

Little by little, however, the evidence that the 
German policy of atrocity was premeditated be- 
came too strong to be refuted even by their sly dis- 
avowals. We were forced to realize that the slay- 
ing of innocent civilians, the ravishing of women, 



266 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

the burning of towns, the bombarding of libraries 
and cathedrals, the wholesale massacres, the starv- 
ing, enslaving, and exile of entire populations were 
not due to such outbursts of bloody passions as 
sometimes blacken warfare in civilized countries 
but were deliberately ordered and carried out with 
all the boasted thoroughness of the German Gen- 
eral Staff. And as this awful revelation of fiend- 
ishness broke upon us, we began to perceive that it 
was only a part, the necessary product, of a system 
for conquering the world and reducing it to slavish 
submission of the House of Hohenzollern. 

ii 

The book which follows 1 gives the best possible 
statement of the principles by which Prussian 
monarchs and ministers were governed, of the 
World Empire which they hoped to establish, and 
of the means by which they expected to destroy 
Civilization and to set up in its place the Dominion 
of the Hun. Observe that these statements do not 
come from me or from any other partisan of Civili- 
zation, but from the Germans themselves. Truth is 
revealed not only in wine, but in those expressions 

"Out of Their Own Mouths," utterances of German rulers, statesmen, 
savants, publicists, journalists, poets, business men, party leaders and 
soldiers. Compiled and edited by Professor Monroe Smith of Columbia 
University. Introduction by W. R. Thayer. D. Appleton and Company, 
New York, 1917. 



OUT OF THEIR OWN MOUTHS 267 

which we make unconsciously in grief, in anger, in 
exultation. So when you find, in the passages which 
follow, the writer exulting over a policy which seems 
to you to be damnable, you can be sure that he is 
wearing no mask. The same is true when he lays be- 
fore you, and gloats over it, a scheme of perfidy; or 
when he exposes, quite naively, his unbounded self- 
conceit and the vast proportions of the national 
swelled head, for which not merely Germany but Eu- 
rope was too small, and only the world could suffice. 
Considering the mass of testimony which had 
been accumulating during the twenty-five years 
between the accession of William II and his launch- 
ing of war in 1914; considering also how openly 
the Germans talked of their "Destiny," their su- 
periority, their fitness to rule the world, it is sur- 
prising how blind other nations and we were. We 
wrapped ourselves in incredulity. We took com- 
placent ease in the thought that the day of Napo- 
leon and Caesar had passed; that the world was 
too civilized to indulge in great wars of conquest; 
that commerce and banking and Socialist interac- 
tions, not to mention the unprecedented growth 
in humane standards, had created an interdepen- 
dence which would make war not merely improb- 
able but unthinkable. We saw, indeed, that Wil- 
liam II was neither a Napoleon nor a Caesar; but 



268 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

we did not sufficiently allow for the effect of the 
inordinate ambition and monstrous vanity of even 
a neurotic monarch working upon a people like the 
German. The size of the fetish never measures 
the strength of the tribe that worships it. 

The war for World Power was no sudden con- 
ception; but only after the victories of Prussia fifty 
years ago did it become the definite aim of the mil- 
itary Junker ring. Having beaten Austria, Prussia 
dominated the German States, whether they would 
or not; and by defeating France, she united Ger- 
many as an Empire in which she was dominant. 
During the next twenty years, Bismarck, the real 
ruler of Germany, dismissed the propagandists of 
Pan-Germanism as half-baked theorists. He de- 
clared that Germany was "a satisfied nation.'' 
He planned to keep Germany at the head of Europe 
but not to destroy France, England, or Italy, nor to 
cripple Russia. He took little interest in colonies, 
nor does he seem to have been humbugged by the 
plea that Germany must go to war in order to win a 
place in the sun. He knew that Germans had mi- 
grated to all parts of the earth, and that in each place 
they were prospering by their thrift and industry. 

William II became Kaiser on June 15, 1888, and 
he soon let the world know that he regarded him- 
self as a bigger man than old Bismarck. Having 



OUT OF THEIR OWN MOUTHS 269 

dropped Bismarck, he chose as advisers mediocre 
men — bureaucrats, militarists, Junkers, who, with 
captains of industry, shaped the policy of the coun- 
try and completed the Prussianization of the non- 
Prussian Germans. Spurred on one side by an 
unscrupulous and a merciless Militarist caste and 
on the other by an equally unscrupulous and merci- 
less Capitalist class — there have been no modern 
money-hunters like the Germans — German inter- 
national policy took the road desired by the Army 
and by the capitalists. Both classes flattered the 
Kaiser into supposing that he originated their poli- 
cies, and that these were essential to the welfare 
of Germany — an easy task, for he was a megalo- 
maniac of colossal proportions. 

About 1895 the dream of World Dominion solidi- 
fied into something more than a dream. Officials 
of the Army, Navy, and State Departments began 
to formulate the steps required to attain it. 
France and Russia — the competing land Powers — 
could easily be smashed; but England, whose 
empire stretched round the earth, could be reached 
and overcome only on the sea. So Germany 
started to build a great navy, and the naval officers 
at their mess drank regularly their toast " Auf den 
Tag' ("To the Day")— the day when they should 
be strong enough to meet the hated English, but 



270 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

for whom the Germans pleasantly assumed they 
would already be supreme. Now Pan-German- 
ists, official and unofficial, raised their paean to the 
superiority of the Germanic race. Historians 
expounded the manifest destiny reserved for them. 
Parsons bade them heed the word of God and slay 
the degenerate peoples. A mad philosopher glori- 
fied the Superman — a creature whom they at once 
assumed was German. Men of science found a 
warrant in biology for the destruction of the weak 
by the strong. The Kaiser himself spoke freely 
of his partnership with "der alte Gott" — a connec- 
tion which of course sealed with sanctity the imper- 
ial utterances and designs. 

Everything being ready, and the enemies of 
Germany being reported by the Kaiser's spies as 
too unprepared to fight, the Prussian military ring 
forced the war. 

in 

When you read the testimony which follows, 
therefore, you will understand that the war was 
the culmination of plans extending over a quarter 
of a century; more than that, that it sprang from 
the Prussian nature, which had proclaimed for a 
hundred years that war is the normal state of na- 
tions. You will see that the horrors, the hideous 



OUT OF THEIR OWN MOUTHS 271 

cruelties, the diabolical devastation, were not ex- 
ceptional crimes, but carefully worked out parts 
of the Prussian military system in action. 

There is a beast in every man. Prussian war 
experts long ago made it their duty to unchain 
this beast and to give it free play during war. 
They discovered how to excite its fury, and how to 
train that fury so that it should be damnably effi- 
cient. How well they have succeeded Belgium can 
tell, and Serbia and Poland and Armenia, whose 
two million and a half of dead were victims of 
massacre arranged by Prussians and carried out by 
Turks. The sinking of the Lusitania, and of hun- 
dreds of other merchant ships — not enemy ships 
only but also neutral ships; the execution of Edith 
Cavell and of Captain Fryatt, the slaughter of 
hostages, the outrages on women and girls of all 
ages, the deportations, the starving of foreign civil- 
ians in prison pens, the sinking of hospital ships, 
the poisoning of wells, the shooting of Red Cross 
ambulance drivers and nurses — these are all de- 
liberate manifestations of the Satanic system of 
Cruelty which the Prussians long ago adopted as 
the guiding principle of their war-making. 

Cruelty has been an attribute of the Germans 
since earliest times. The Goths and Vandals and 
their kindred barbarians practised it as a matter 



272 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

of course. The Huns — the spiritual ancestors of 
the Prussians — raised it to such a bad eminence 
that for fourteen centuries they stood unchallenged 
as foremost in cruelty. 

The second pillar of the Prussian system is Men- 
dacity. Frederick the Great gloried in his use of 
it; what he wrote about it might form a Manual 
of Treachery. Bismarck was an expert in it. 
What can be expected of a nation whose national 
heroes are Frederick, who held no oath sacred, and 
Bismarck, who doctored the Ems dispatch ? Men- 
dacity, as practised by the Prussians, includes 
hypocrisy, downright lies, treachery, and the de- 
basing spy system which has been employed since 
1914 to undermine the United States. Deceit 
belongs properly to the savage, and we need not 
wonder, therefore, that it has been made a specialty 
by the modern Barbarians. President Wilson, 
whose opportunities for knowing details have, of 
course, surpassed those of any other American in- 
dividual, has carefully distinguished between the 
German people and the German Imperial Govern- 
ment. With that clue we can, in all this terrible 
affair, assign responsibility for the wicked plans 
and their carrying out. 

What I may call official German collective men- 
dacity has reached its climax since 1896, when the 



OUT OF THEIR OWN MOUTHS 273 

Germans began secretly to plant colonies abroad; 
taking care that the new immigrants should go to 
strengthen German influence in chosen countries, 
and that the earlier settlers should be won back by 
blandishments and bribes of allegiance to German 
Imperialism. This was Prince Billow's way of 
"redeeming" German emigrants. No American, 
with our experience of the past three years before 
him, needs to be told the abominable methods 
employed or the results achieved. 

Cruelty and Mendacity! These two words sum 
up military Prussianism. Humanity means the 
victory of human qualities and ideals over those 
of the beast. Prussianism, in exalting Cruelty, 
denies Humanity and voluntarily accepts the 
standards of the Beast. So Prussianism is an out- 
law from Humanity. In like fashion, by practising 
and glorifying Mendacity, Prussianism denies the 
primal trust of man in man, of tribe in tribe, which 
is the cornerstone of Civilization. Prussianism 
flouts the sanctity of treaties, and laughs at all 
other obligations which might check or hamper it; 
and thereby it denies international faith, and makes 
itself an outlaw from Civilization. 

You who read this confession of such ideals, you 
who remember how ruthlessly they have been put 
into practice, cannot plead ignorance in making 



274 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

your decisions between Civilization and Prussian- 
ism. You are American; can you picture Washing- 
ton or Lincoln as supporting any of these devilish 
doctrines? You are American, and in the light 
of what the Teutons have done and still hope to do, 
you cannot doubt that if they got a foothold here 
they would shoot down you and your friends as 
hostages, destroy your home and your town, out- 
rage your wife and daughters, devastate the coun- 
try, and try to terrorize it into submission. They 
would have no more respect for Americans than 
they have had for Belgians or for French. Like 
the wolves and the hyenas, they do these things 
because it is their nature to do them. Do not 
allow any specious argument to lure you to the side 
of the wolf and the hyena. 
Those who are not with us are against us. 



XI 

FRANCE: 1916 1 

HOW many times, Immortal France, 
Though men suppose you dead, 
You lift above black circumstance 
Your haloed head. 

Never more reverend than now, 
When challenged at Verdun, 

Month after month, with dauntless brow 
You face the Hun. 

You smote him first on Chalons hill 

And Catelaunia's plain 
Ages ago, and still — and still — 

He ramps again. 

But yet again your sword shall smite, 

And Attila shall fall: 
You save not France alone; you fight 

For us, for all ! 



'From the volume "For France," issued for the benefit of French War 
Sufferers. Published by Doubleday, Page & Co., New York, 1917. 

27S 



276 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

The doom impending two-score years, 

Burst on you unprepared: 
Startled, but stript of doubts and fears 

You greatly dared. 

For swift ! as if by miracle 

You stood a chastened soul, 
Purged in desire, staunch in will, 

United, whole! 

And all your children from all parts 

Rallied around your feet, 
Till forty million Gallic hearts 

As one heart beat. 

And then — th J Eternal Vision came 

Transfigured to your eye — 
The single duty, godlike aim — 

To win or die. 

All you had been and all your dead 

Rose up to war for you : 
Each of the laureled spectres said: 

"Mother! be true! " 

You heard — and chose! An inner peace 

Irradiates your land; 
Stilled are the doubts; the discords cease; 

You understand. 



FRANCE: 1916 277 

Scorning the menaced doom, and chance, 

The utmost odds you brave; 
Better that there should be no France, 

Than France a slave. 

You fight for us ! Thank God ! that we 

Now battle by your side ! 
Your sires once fought to make us free, 

And for us died. 

Heroic France! I thank and bless! 

The record you have set 
Among the stars Time shall not stress 

Nor man forget ! 

You mingle human and divine 

To save an age undone; 
Marne and Verdun shall deathless shine 

With Marathon. 

Through you the future is redeemed, — 
Through you, unworldly grown, 
As if in all your children beamed 
The soul of Joan. 



XII 

LET FOCH DECIDE! 1 

Let Foch decide! 
Let him say: "No, 
Never surrender to a beaten foe 
The safety of the world, for which have died 
Millions of honest men. 
Beware the whimper of the vanquish'd Hun, 
Beware the whining of the homicide — 
William the Liar, who brags, and slays, and then 
With ratlike squealing seeks his hole again ! 
Trust not the hazard of a juggler's pen 
To keep what we have won ! " 

In Foch confide! 
The silent, strong, enduring, dauntless man — 
First in a hundred fights, trust him who never ran, 
But thrice — at Nancy, Marne, and Ypres — smote 
The Teuton legions and abased their pride. 
Woe unto those who at this fatal time 
Would compromise with crime, 



1 Boston Herald, October 14, 1918. 

278 



LET FOCH DECIDE! 279 

And bandy cunning with the shameless Hun! 

He stands on ruin's brink; 

Our victory is near: not ink, 

But blood, but valour and unshaken will 

Should be our weapons and our skill. 

In Foch we trust ! 
He writes no letters and his speech is brief; 
He scorns the subterfuge of dust 
Thrown into statesmen's eyes; 
He will not compromise ! 
He saw far off the goal, 
And with undaunted soul 
Wins it, unboasting, as becomes a Chief! 
Be every reptile message of the Boche 
Referred henceforth to Foch ! 

William Roscoe Thayer. 
Oct. 13, 1918. 



XIII 

PRUSSIA'S PEWTER NAPOLEON, PEWTER THE 
GREAT— A STUDY IN ALLOYS 1 

A LITTLE while ago, our part of the world was 
amused to learn that a prize trophy given by 
the German Emperor to the winner of a yacht race 
before the war, and supposed to be worth five thou- 
sand dollars — surely a very modest sum for a mon- 
arch of his munificence — was sold and melted down 
as a contribution to the Red Cross Fund. In- 
stead of being of precious metal as was supposed 
it turned out to be of pewter, plated, and worth 
only forty dollars. Doubtless many other of the 
grandiose benefactions which the Kaiser lavished 
on an unwilling world were also fakes. His statue 
of Frederick the Great, for instance, which he in- 
sisted upon dumping on the United States — an act 
at which John Hay, who was then our Secretary of 
State, groaned — may not be bronze at all, and the 
semi-barbaric facsimiles of the mediaeval art works 
which he presented to the Germanic Museum at 
Harvard might, if examined, be worth only four 

x Boston Evening Transcript, October 19, 1918. 

280 



A STUDY IN ALLOYS 281 

hundred dollars instead of the advertised fifty 
thousand. 

But I am not concerned with these cheap and 
vulgar evidences of imperial meanness. I cite 
them only as indications of the Kaiser's false and 
braggart nature. The man who stoops to make a 
counterfeit gift will not stop there. William II, 
who has always thought Americans very gullible, 
hoped to fool the American yachtsmen into admir- 
ing him for his #5,000 trophy. Now they and the 
world laugh at him as a pewter monarch. 

Observers of Almightiest Hohenzollern character 
must have suspected for years past that there was a 
great deal of pewter in so boastful a person. Boast- 
ers and bullies don't ring true; there is too 
much pewter in them to ring at all. We are not 
surprised, therefore, to find that the German 
Kaiser is, after all, only a pewter Napoleon. As 
a youth, he had the ambition to surpass Napoleon 
the Great, both as a general and as the founder 
of a world empire. Ever since he came to the 
throne thirty years ago he has boasted of "my 
army," "my soldiers," "my invincibility," when 
in truth he inherited the army from Von Moltke 
and other men of real military knowledge and 
achievement. Every year he held grand ma- 
noeuvres, which were so planned that they culmi- 



282 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

nated in a tremendous cavalry charge, led by the 
Kaiser, who of course easily crushed his imaginary 
opponents. But the military system of Germany 
was carefully worked out by the General Staff, 
who saw to every detail and shaped every policy. 
He has no more right to the credit of having pro- 
duced the German army than the president of a 
steamship company would have to claim that he 
invented the machinery that ran his ships. 

Now the real Napoleon, the sort of man whom 
his pewter Prussian mimic would like the world to 
take him for, rose from the ranks, learned how to 
control and lead men himself, invented new forms 
of strategy, elaborated a military system, and was 
himself the master to whom the members of his 
staff had to go to school. It is very different, being 
born a monarch with a multitude of obsequious 
lackeys dressed out as cabinet ministers, courtiers, 
professors, parsons, malefactors of great wealth 
and other sycophants, having from the State all 
the money you can spend, as well as a large army 
for a plaything, from being born a poor and unbe- 
friended Corsican boy, and making your way to 
the top during the most tremendous of revolutions, 
against endless difficulties and voracious ambitions. 
What Napoleon achieved, he did himself. Cir- 
cumstances favoured him, if you will, but the sign 



A STUDY IN ALLOYS 283 

of the great man is to know when circumstances 
are favourable, and to make them seem to do his 
bidding. 

In fairness, we admit that such an origin and 
bringing up as William II had would be detrimental 
to the development of any great man, above all to 
a great commander. Hannibal, Caesar, and Na- 
poleon in their youth were not warped by the pe- 
dantries, barbaric traditions, insufferable adulations 
and incentives to megalomania which fed the young 
vulture in the Hohenzollern nest. At the age 
when the adolescent William was playing the Krieg- 
spiel, and dreaming of being another and greater 
Napoleon, the real Napoleon was leading a desper- 
ate charge over the bridge of Lodi, risking his own 
life and the fortunes of his country at Areola, and 
smashing the bespangled marshals of Austria 
wherever he met them. 

Neither then in his third decade nor at any time 
since, so far as the records show, has the pewter 
Napoleon of Prussia come within range of bullet or 
shell. For fifty months Europe has witnessed the 
most appalling war in all her history, and during 
every month over a hundred thousand soldiers, 
have been killed in this war, but William the 
Pewter has remained unscathed. This is a cynical 
world, or it would not ask why he has escaped. 



284 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

How could it come about that a monarch who, 
from boyhood up, had bellowed praises of war; 
who had created a synod of biologists and Lutheran 
pastors and atheists to prove that war was the 
natural state of man, and the only condition worthy 
of high men and low men alike; by what evil fate 
has it happened that this monarch has been unable 
during fifty months to get into the most multitudi- 
nous of all wars, one which, moreover, he himself 
caused and pretends to have directed? Every 
day, during all this time, hundreds of tons of muni- 
tions have been fired at his armies, but not a single 
bullet, not the smallest splinter of shrapnel has 
come near him. Was ever a man so cheated in 
his fondest desire? Every day has witnessed a 
thousand heroisms, and he, who should be, poten- 
tially, the most radiant German hero of them all 
has been unable to reach the terrain where battle- 
heroes find immortality. 

With a feeling of chagrin the world concludes 
that the pewter in him has made the bumptious 
Kaiser a coward, and the world, though cynical, 
is really fair. It says to the Shade of Napoleon 
the Great: "Being Napoleon, you naturally 
risked your life on fifty battlefields," and to Wil- 
liam II it says: "Being pewter, you have dili- 
gently kept out of harm's way, ever since as a little 



A STUDY IN ALLOYS 285 

boy you toddled up and down Unter den Linden 
with your bodyguard of nurses and lackeys. Dur- 
ing the war, we hear of your rushing from the 
French front to the Baltic in your limousine, sur- 
rounded by other camouflaged automobiles, with 
your motor kitchen, your sleeping cabinet, your 
truck of fine wines, and all the paraphernalia 
which a monarch kept in cotton should have. The 
newspapers give us snapshots of you preparing 
for your triumphal entry into the foreign capitals 
which you have temporarily taken. We see you 
in your innumerable uniforms — these alone must 
require four or five extra camions and a squad of 
chamberlains — reviewing troops in Sofia or Warsaw 
or wherever you run across them, and a photog- 
rapher is at hand. How many imperial kisses you 
have bestowed on the Sultan, or the Czar of Bul- 
garia (Ferdinand, father of all the Shylocks), on 
the old Emperor of Austria and on the new ! What 
an eye you have for spectacular effects — provided 
that the kodakers are near!" 

If you think the world cynical, I reply: "You 
are mistaken. The world simply judges men by 
their positions and professions. As it expects a 
parson to lead a moral life, so it expects a supreme 
military commander to know at least how powder 
smells, and the difference in sound between the 



286 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

whizzing of bullets and the explosive shrieks of 
shrapnel. When it discovers that you are pewter, 
it proclaims the fact out of its stern love of truth." 

I hear the Kaiser's apologists protest that he is 
really a man of unmatched courage. Unmatched ? 
Yes, but that depends upon whom you match him 
with. You recall, doubtless, that in the early days 
of the war he took up his position on a high hill, 
out of range of the artillery, and waited throughout 
a long summer day, to see his superabundant troops 
destroy the French near Nancy. The victory 
which he awaited never came. Instead of that, 
the German army ran before the French, and the 
pewter Kaiser had himself run away long before 
his fleeing troops could catch up with him. Fie has 
repeated this martial gesture, this expression of 
courage which refused to be corked up, several 
times since, but always with the same result; for 
always when he has counted upon witnessing the 
utter rout of the British or the French, he has had 
to take to his heels in order to escape being cap- 
tured by them. 

If the Germans possessed the sense of accuracy 
which belongs to the coloured brethren in our 
South, they would call William "a first-class Jonah 
man," and regard his presence in military affairs 
or at a battle as a hoodoo. Ah! but his troops 



A STUDY IN ALLOYS 287 

are Germans; what more can you say? Every 
year, on January 27, the Kaiser's birthday, there has 
been some particular movement by his armies in 
order that the news of an irrelevant and unimport- 
ant victory might give him a better appetite for 
his food. Perhaps this movement cost 5,000 or 
10,000 or 15,000 German lives. No matter being 
Germans, the soldiers were unquestionably glad to 
die, and their wives and mothers at home were glad 
to have them die, if by so doing they stimulated 
William the Pewter into drinking a glass more of 
champagne than usual on his birthday. 

I know that the Kaiser's apologists will urge in 
his defence that the leaders of armies are no longer 
expected to head their troops in battle, or even 
to be on the battlefield itself. The days are past 
when the White Plume of Navarre led Henry IV's 
soldiers to victory at Ivry, or when Napoleon Buon- 
aparte dashed through the hail of bullets at Lodi, 
or when U. S. Grant sat like a statue on his horse, 
unperturbed amid the dangers and carnage of the 
Wilderness; a Generalissimo now has his head- 
quarters perhaps twenty miles, or it may be thirty, 
from the actual front where men are dying in 
swarms, and the telephone and telegraph bring 
him the news, moment by moment, from which he 
forms his quick decisions and sends them back to 



288 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

his officers in the desperate fight. Still we feel, 
and I believe that mankind will always feel, that 
the head of a great army ought sometimes to show 
that he has courage. It is a little suspicious for 
him to screen himself behind the plea that his life 
is so valuable that duty requires him not to risk it. 

What we surmise about William the Pewter is 
that he has never in youth or age come within 
gunshot of risk. His Hohenzollern forerunners 
were not always thus. Leaving out the Barbarians 
whose imaginary portraits he has caused to be 
sculptured in all their pristine savagery and ugli- 
ness on the monuments of the Sieges Allee, Berlin, 
we find that Frederick the Great was more than 
once in the storm-centre of his battles and that 
William I, the present Kaiser's grandfather, rode 
so near the bullets at Sadowa that Bismarck, who 
accompanied him, felt obliged to give the king's 
mare so hard a kick in the flank that she dashed 
with her rider beyond reach of the danger. 

William the Pewter's habit of taking up a safe 
position in the hope of seeing his Teutonic hordes 
win a great victory reminds one of the description 
of his hunting in the days of peace. Then he 
used to sit in his hunting box— the precaution 
having been taken to build it so high that no 
animals could leap into it and do him harm — and 



A STUDY IN ALLOYS 289 

while his officers handed him loaded guns as fast 
as he needed them, he would shoot the wild boars, 
which his gamekeepers drove in front of his box. 
Splendid sport, wasn't it? How his Imperial 
Majesty must have thrilled with courage, and 
plumed himself on being greater than Nimrod, as 
one after another of the wild boars fell dead before 
his box! Perhaps the sight of them suggested to 
him the pretty way of wearing his moustaches 
twirled up like the tusks of the wild boars which he 
boasted of killing. So his docile German troops 
were driven into battle at Nancy, at Ypres, and else- 
where, for his exultation, but the British and the 
French — not the Pewter Kaiser — did the slaying. 
I have been more or less skeptical of the pos- 
sibility of tracing the processes of heredity in 
human history, but the record of the Hohenzollern 
has converted me. For generation after genera- 
tion mendacity and piracy have been family 
characteristics in them too marked and too con- 
stant to be ignored. When the Robber Barons 
of the southern mountains became the Lords of 
Brandenburg and set out to expand Prussia, they 
found the same traits, piracy and mendacity, 
among the racial nondescripts, including the 
Tartar strains, who dwelt in what is now Eastern 
Prussia and Pomerania. William the Pewter 



2 9 o VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

was one of them — they knew it, and he knew it; 
and he illustrated the fact of heredity through a 
line many generations in length. 

To his six sons he transmitted the inheritance 
for ferocity and falsehood; but he transmitted 
also his personal aversion to danger. That is the 
beauty of the law of heredity; when some stub- 
bornly different trait crops up, you account for it 
as a variation from type, due to the interposition 
of a grandparent or of a forgotten great uncle. In 
this case the six imperial princes evidently derive 
their somewhat exaggerated instinct of self-pres- 
ervation from their august but pewter father. 
It seems to be the law that lower traits are trans- 
mitted much more easily than are higher. 

The meaning of all this is that although the 
Kaiser's six sons have been nominally in the war 
during fifty months, not one of them has received 
a scratch. A scratch? So far as we know, none 
of them has been within reach of receiving one 
from an Allied missile during all this period. They 
have all held high military titles, and to one of 
them at least, to the Crown Prince — whose weasel 
features are known throughout the world, and 
have only to be seen in order to be admired — has 
been entrusted the command of the principal Ger- 
man army. Crown Prince Weasel, it will be re- 



A STUDY IN ALLOYS 291 

membered, was the much-advertised leader of 
the German War Party before the war. He 
summed up the martial instincts of the Prussians; 
and just as in the boar's-tusk moustaches of the 
Pewter Kaiser the discerning could detect the 
ferocious and piratical instincts of the race, so in 
the Crown Prince's weasel features, its slyness, 
deceit, and shamelessness were apparent. 

Let us not forget that it was he who applauded 
every example of military truculence in the days 
of peace. When a cowardly Prussian lieutenant 
caused two of his soldiers to seize and hold the 
crippled shoemaker of Saverne, while he drew his 
sword and slashed him, it was the Crown Prince 
who sent him an enthusiastic telegram and thanked 
him for upholding Prussian valour! Among what 
savage people, were they Bantus or Basutos, 
would such cowardly action be called valour, or 
would such a lieutenant or such a crown prince be 
tolerated? But the Germans applaud and practise 
infamies which have never entered the minds of 
the wickedest savages. 

When the Kaiser went on his yachting trip after 
the secret meeting of the Pirates of Potsdam, on 
July 5, 1914, he left the Crown Prince in control, 
thereby hoping to create the impression that he 
himself had nothing to do in bringing on the war. 



292 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

At any rate, during the three weeks which followed 
the Imperial Weasel acted so efficiently that when 
the Kaiser returned and entered the council 
chamber on July 27 his son said to him: "Father, 
you come too late." This I had from the late 
ex-Ambassador George von L. Meyer, who was in 
Berlin a few days after the event, and was given 
this and other details of the meeting by his friend 
Von Jagow, the German Foreign Secretary, who 
was present. 

Europe having been plunged into war by this 
piratical gang, every measure was taken to "stage" 
the Crown Prince in a most conspicuous part. He 
was given command of a great army; he, too, had 
his limousines and his kitchens and his ambulant 
wine cellar, and his obsequious retinue, not all of 
which, according to the gossips, was composed of 
males. But the Kaiser felt that nothing must be 
left undone in order to make the Crown Prince 
emerge from the war as its military hero. The 
sequence, if not the safety, of the Hohenzollern 
Dynasty required that. How would it look when 
peace came if Hindenburg or Falkenhayn or 
Mackensen were the hero of the German people 
instead of the coddled Crown Prince Weasel ? 

And indeed the likelihood that this would happen 
increased as the war went on. Hindenburg was 



A STUDY IN ALLOYS 293 

the idol of 1914, and the Germans expressed their 
admiration by driving nails into a wooden effigy 
of him — a peculiarly delicate, cultured, and German 
form of hero-worship. In 1915, when Falken- 
hayn and Mackensen also pushed to the fore, 
the German General Staff, the Kaiser, and the 
Crown Prince believed that the time had now come 
for crushing France, which they had failed to do 
earlier, and it was now or never for the Crown 
Prince. So they prepared and let loose early 
in 1916 their terrific attack on Verdun, and they 
kept it up for six months, until five hundred 
thousand Germans had been destroyed. Then 
they were obliged to stop in order to parry the 
advance of the English in the north. 

It was doubtless a supreme pleasure to the 
mothers and wives and sweethearts of the half 
million Germans killed at Verdun to know that 
their dear ones were sacrificed in order to give the 
Crown Prince a military reputation which he 
never deserved and could not win, and to solidify 
the Hohenzollern Dynasty. The gladiators of 
ancient Rome who were forced to fight in the 
Colosseum and fell, "butchered to make a Roman 
holiday," were foreign captives, presumably 
enemies, but the myriads of Germans who were 
butchered to make a holiday for the Crown Prince 



294 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

were natives of the Germanic stock; and yet so 
servile is their race, that their families were proud 
to have them butchered at the pleasure of the 
Crown Prince Weasel. Truly, the psychology of 
the Teutons could be fathomed only by the Keeper 
of a madhouse. 

The Crown Prince was blessed with five brothers, 
all of whom had been brought up to regard war 
as their normal occupation, and had looked for- 
ward to this war which would usher in "The Day" 
they all fervently desired as their great oppor- 
tunity. They were given important commissions 
and some of them were to serve as rulers of the 
various princedoms which the Kaiser wished to 
carve out of his conquests in Russia and the 
Balkans. But fifty months have elapsed, during 
which, according to the chroniclers, a considerable 
war has been fought, but not one of the five princes 
has been gazetted in any battle, has received any 
wound, or in fact has been reported within reach 
of any bullet. To be strictly just, I must add 
that the youngest, on hearing the rumble of a 
cannonade very far off, had heart disease, and was 
hurried back to his mother to recuperate. So far 
as appears he has not again risked palpitations in 
the four years which have intervened. 

Now to the student of human nature, pewterness 



A STUDY IN ALLOYS 295 

is most interesting because it presents such un- 
looked-for surprises. Here were seven grown-up 
men, inured from childhood to military training, 
obsessed by the hideous doctrine that war was the 
normal employment of individuals and nations, 
convinced that only by victory in battle could 
monarchs, especially German monarchs, maintain 
control and prestige over their people. For thirty 
years had these men prepared for war, adopting 
every invention, no matter how devilish, which 
might improve their weapons, selecting a general 
staff which could not presumably be equalled, 
resorting to lies and diplomatic chicane in order 
to lull their enemies into a fatal tranquillity, even 
casting medals before war was declared to celebrate 
their entry into Paris and other places — and yet, 
when war came, they kept themselves scrupulously 
out of danger, nor has any one of them, so far as 
we know, come within gunshot of the enemy during 
these fifty months. Can you imagine a prize- 
fighter after a long training to fit him to fight a 
battle for the championship of the world, skulking 
away when the day of battle came ? 

This is what I mean when I suggest that there 
is a pewter alloy in the decadent Hohenzollerns 
of our time. They want the victory, they crave 
the personal and dynastic glory, but they don't 



296 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

want to run any personal risk. The time seems 
near at hand when the Kaiser and Crown Prince 
Weasel, and perhaps also the younger members 
of this monster brood, will have opportunity to 
study the life of Napoleon the Great and to learn 
how widely he differed in intellect and spirit from 
his pewter Prussian mimic. They will see also 
that their German generals fell far behind Na- 
poleon's in respect to personal valour. Every 
one of Napoleon's marshals rose by personal valour 
on the field. Some of them were killed in action, 
and Ney, the bravest of the brave, led the final 
charge at Waterloo, his final battle. The German 
marshals and generals never lead their men because 
it is said they are afraid of being shot from behind 
by their own troops! It is also safer — for other 
reasons. 

Americans, who of course know nothing of 
warfare, have already commented, not always 
perhaps with proper deference, on the immunity 
which the seven pewter Hohenzollerns have enjoyed 
during this Atrocious War; they have contrasted 
it with the fate of the four Roosevelt boys, who 
went into the struggle without high commissions 
and without limousines, camp kitchens, and retinues 
to make life in the field pleasant for them. Of 
these four, in less than a year one has been killed, 



A STUDY IN ALLOYS 297 

one has been so shattered by wounds that he is 
likely to be crippled for life, and a third has been 
less seriously wounded. Their father, Colonel 
Roosevelt, wished to go to the front before a single 
American battalion had crossed the ocean, but he 
was refused a commission for reasons which 
the public does not even now understand. If 
he had gone, no Americans believe that, like the 
Kaiser, he would have kept himself carefully in 
the hinterland of danger. 

Times have so changed that the conduct of the 
far-flung, month-long contests of to-day differs 
from that of the battles of our Civil War, or even 
of the War of 1870. But we Americans remember 
•Albert Sidney Johnston, Stonewall Jackson, Rey- 
nolds, and other generals North and South, who 
fell in the midst of battle, and we honour them all 
the more for it. Nor can we think that Robert 
E. Lee or Beauregard, any more than Grant or 
Sherman or Sheridan, would have shrunk from 
the post of greatest danger had duty called him 
there. 

Systems of warfare will vary from age to age, 
until possibly General Staffs may direct operations 
from afar, as international chess players now con- 
duct their games by cable. But courage will 
never change — never go out of fashion. It is 



298 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

always new. It requires no apologies, no explana- 
tion. We Americans should feel proud and grate- 
ful that as a matter of course all our commanders, 
from Washington down, have displayed it. 

Truly war, especially war as waged by the 
Teutons, is a strange, stupid, incongruous, and 
hellish affair. 

But what other War-Lord can compare with 
Pewter the Great ? 



XIV 
ITALY AND THE ADRIATIC: PEACE TERMS 1 

THE peace terms which will satisfy Italy, so 
far as she herself is concerned, have already 
been much discussed. I cannot pretend to have 
any information as to what the Italian Envoys, 
who speak for her at the Peace Congress, will 
demand. At different times since the war began 
various rumours have floated about as to Italy's 
stipulations. At the beginning these rumours 
were often cruel because the world misjudged 
Italy, and the Germans did all they could to spread 
the impression that she was a mercenary, a faith- 
less mercenary, who was waiting to sell her help 
in the war to the highest bidder. 

The truth is, that in August, 1914, Italy had 
neither sufficient men, money, nor munitions to 
go into the war. The coils which the Germans 
had wound round her commerce and industry 
so strangled her that it took more than six months 
for her to shake herself free. But from the start, 
she denounced the Triple Alliance in which she 

^World's Work, December, 1918. 

299 



300 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

was a partner with Germany and Austria, and 
she did inestimable service to the Allies and to 
civilization by informing the French Minister 
that she would not uphold the Teutons. This 
action released several army corps of French troops 
that would otherwise have had to guard the Franco- 
Italian frontier. 

During the winter and early spring of 19 14 
and '15 Rome was beset by agents of the Allies 
and of the Entente who did their utmost to secure 
her support. Prince Biilow, whose wife was! 
Italian, and who was an old resident of Rome, 
set up his quarters there and, with effrontery 
characteristically Prussian, waged an open cam- 
paign of corruption in behalf of the German alli- 
ance. When, at last, he found that even he could 
neither persuade nor buy Italy to align her army 
with the German, he did his utmost to keep her 
neutral and so to prevent her from joining forces 
with the Allies. Among other things, he promised 
that she should have the Trentino and Trieste. 
These belonged to Austria, but he quite naturally 
disposed of Austrian territory, because he knew 
that Austria was Germany's vassal. What would 
happen if Austria refused to ratify the gifts which 
German Biilow made in her name was not put 
to the test, for Italy could not be seduced. In 



ITALY AND THE ADRIATIC 301 

May, 1915, she declared war on Austria and in 
August, 19 1 6, on Germany, having so far read- 
justed the control of her industries and commerce 
that she could get along without German super- 
intendents and foremen. 

Thus Italy's entry into the war was voluntary; 
she might have remained neutral and so have 
saved herself the expense and hardships and hor- 
rors. But, like the United States, she went in of 
her own free will and with great peril confronting 
her. 

I do not know that she asked any exorbitant 
terms from the Allies for her cooperation. Both 
England and France, I believe, supplied her with 
some money by loans which probably went to 
pay for the war material which she bought in 
those countries. It was taken for granted that 
in case the war ended favourably to the Allies 
Italia Irredenta would go to Italy. The phrase 
"Unredeemed Italy" is itself somewhat vague, 
because the strict constructionists claim that 
Nice and Savoy which were ceded to France in 
i860, and that the Swiss Canton of Ticino are 
to be redeemed, either because they had been parts 
of Italy or were inhabited by Italians, and should 
be restored to their mother country. As com- 
monly used, however, "Italia Irredenta" means 



302 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

the Italian regions in southern Austria, in Istria, 
and along the eastern coast of the Adriatic. 

The most eager among the patriots insisted that 
all the Dalmatian coast should be included, because 
that, too, like Istria, had once belonged to the 
Venetian Republic. Everywhere, in the towns 
and islands of that coast, one comes upon wit- 
nesses to the former sovereignty of Venice, and a 
dialect of the Italian language still persists there. 
But the Venetian sway formerly extended over much 
of Greece also and, as you drive to-day through the 
city gate of Nauplia you see on the fortress wall 
the Lion of St. Mark. Accordingly, one of the 
first points to be settled in laying down Italy's peace 
terms must be how far her remote ownership of 
lands on the eastern Adriatic ought to be considered. 

For what should be the principles for the Peace 
Congress to aim at? First, Justice; second, 
Liberty; third, recognition of the ability of each 
state, whether large or small, to determine its own 
destiny, to the fullest extent compatible with the 
peace, prosperity, and freedom of all. The mere 
fact, therefore, that the Venetians had once held 
Spalato and Zara and the Peloponnese, and that 
as Venice, being part of the present Kingdom of 
Italy, automatically gave over to Italy all her 
inherited rights, ought not to be the prime consid- 



ITALY AND THE ADRIATIC 303 

eration in deciding the fate of the Dalmatian 
Coast. Venice once owned Constantinople, but 
no one would dream of asserting that that remote 
ownership gives Italy a claim on Constantinople. 
So France once owned the Province of Quebec, 
but it certainly would no more conduce to peace 
and justice to restore Quebec to France than it 
would for us to restore Florida to Spain, or New 
York City to the Dutch. 

Italy needs first of all geographical safety. 
Her northern frontier, as drawn for her by Bis- 
marck and the Austrians after the War of 1866, 
leaves her dangerously unprotected on the side of 
Austria. Toward France, on the west, the Alps 
form a sufficient covering, and they give her an 
almost impassable protection all along the Swiss 
frontier. Indeed, unless the Swiss were in league 
with some much more powerful enemy on the north 
they could scarcely push their way into Italy at all, 
but it is against Austria that the Italians really 
need a better boundary. The present line which 
dates, as I have just said, from 1866, runs so as to 
afford Austria a comparatively easy access into 
Italy through several of the Alpine valleys on the 
north, and by way of the Julian Alps on the east. 

Now as every man is entitled to have a door 
to his house which he can lock, so each country 



304 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

should have, so far as geography permits, proper 
frontiers to safeguard it from aggression. 

What geography can do for a nation we see in 
the case of Germany, which has owed more to her 
geographical position than to her professors and 
her General Staff. Owing to the ease with which 
Austria could invade Italy, Italy has been forced 
during the past fifty years to strengthen her line 
as well as she could by fortifications, and to keep a 
larger force than she would have kept otherwise 
under arms, to guard her forts. The Peace Con- 
gress ought to take care in readjusting the map, 
to see to it that such reason as this for main- 
taining an army shall have no warrant; for I be- 
lieve that one of the surest ways to establish a 
durable peace will be to reduce armies to the small- 
est size feasible. The obvious work, therefore, 
will be to draw Italy's boundaries with Austria 
so that the Italians may feel far more safe than 
they do now. The topography of the Carnic 
Alps is such that the valleys that run south 
give the Austrians an easy approach into Italy, 
but the Italians cannot use these same valleys for 
pouncing upon Austria; because the ridges of 
the high Alps have to be crossed before you can at- 
tack Austria from the south. 

But there are considerations more pressing 



ITALY AND THE ADRIATIC 305 

even than those of geography. Politics, including 
international relations, has to be taken into 
account; so also sentiment, intangible and illusive, 
but very real and persistent, and often the mighti- 
est of all the forces which sway a people. Italia 
Irredenta cries aloud, just as geography does, for 
the rectification of the Italo-Austrian frontier. 
"Unredeemed Italy" consists of those communi- 
ties which are Italian in race, speech, and tradition 
and above all in sentiment and desires. We must 
never make light of patriotism, much less despise 
it in a tribe or nation, no matter how insignificant 
it may appear. Patriotism, like the atmosphere, 
may be compressed and compressed, but sooner 
or later when the burden becomes intolerable it 
explodes. The people of the Trentino and of 
Trieste are largely Italian by origin; they speak 
Itatlian and they want to join their lot with that 
of Italy. They regard themselves as under for- 
eign domination. It will not do to say that his- 
torically they have never belonged to the King- 
dom of Italy, because this has never existed, in 
its modern form at least, until fifty years ago. In 
their case, as in many others, the rigid historical 
argument will not apply. The only cogent fact 
is that they feel Italian, and wish to unite with 
their brother Italians. 



306 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

The reasons for such a uniting may appear to 
foreigners insufficient, but it is the people of the 
Trentino and Trieste who must judge. As Mas- 
simo d'Azeglio remarked nearly eighty years ago — 
when the inhabitants of the Romagna rose in 
insurrection against their Papal tyrants — an out- 
sider has no right to retort: "'You can!' when 
a suffering people cries out, T can bear no more/ ' 

There is no doubt that the Istrians and Tren- 
tines are in great part Italian. Slavic and Teu- 
tonic strains are sprinkled among them, but the 
racial basis is Italic, and it remains Italic, in spite 
of all the Austrian efforts to exterminate it, for 
when the Irredentists some forty years ago began 
to clamour for freedom and for union with Italy, 
Austria adopted toward them the savage methods 
of oppression which Germany was employing to- 
ward the conquered Alsatians. The Austrians 
demonstrated again the Teutonic incapacity to 
rule conquered peoples except by brutal methods. 
The principle by which the English have become 
possessed of vast territories all over the world has 
been by according justice to everybody and by 
allowing religious liberty to every tribe. The 
German, however, whether he comes from Prus- 
sia or from Austria, cannot be satisfied unless he 
has placed his hobnailed boot on the neck of his 



ITALY AND THE ADRIATIC 307 

conquered victim, and when this does not suffi- 
ciently satisfy the Boche, he exterminates. 

Accordingly, when Austria found that the Itali- 
ans of the unredeemed sections were cherishing 
hopes of freeing themselves, she endeavoured to 
purge them of their Italianism. She tried to stop 
the use of the Italian language, not only in the 
schools, academies, and business, but in the homes, 
and she gradually introduced many Slavic settlers 
into Istria, just as the Germans transplanted Ger- 
man settlers into Alsace. The Austrian police very 
naturally treated with severity any persons who 
were suspected of having Italian propensities. 
There was constant friction, which sometimes 
ended in bloodshed, and of course any Italians who 
were unlucky enough to be brought into court 
suffered the severest penalties. 

For a while the Irrendentist intrigues slackened 
to such a point that Austria began to think that 
she had outlived the danger. This slackening 
came from two causes. Italy was engaged in 
several larger matters at home which took her at- 
tention somewhat away from Irredentism, and 
after she joined the Triple Alliance in 1882 Austria, 
instead of acting more kindly toward the Irredent- 
ists — who were kinsmen in spirit at least, to her 
Italian partner — presumed on that partnership to 



3 o8 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

treat them worse. Latterly, when the Irredentists 
have renewed their protests and their clandestine 
campaigning, Austria has pointed to the census to 
show that after all the Irredentists do not represent 
the will of the mass of the inhabitants of Trieste. 
(The Germans have done the same, in regard to 
Alsace.) By the planting of German and Slavic 
colonists in Trieste and its neighbourhood the num- 
ber of Italians has proportionately decreased. We 
must remember also that in many cases the Italians 
who were able quitted Istria rather than live under 
Austrian oppression. The exodus was not nearly 
so great relatively as that of the French from Alsace 
but it was great enough to account for some of the 
increase in the non-Italian population of the Irre- 
dentist districts. 

But the Congress would have as little difficulty 
in assuring itself that the sentiment of the Trentino 
and of the other parts of Italia Irredenta is gen- 
uinely Italian as in concluding that the protection of 
Italy demands that she shall annex Italia Irredenta. 
Austria's claim that the majority of opinion there 
is German and Slavic is based on falsehood, as any 
foreigner who has visited those towns and dis- 
tricts can affirm. If the racial and lingual pre- 
ponderance were German and Slavic, why were 
the manifestos ordering the mobilization of the 



ITALY AND THE ADRIATIC 309 

people in the valley of the Trent and at Cortina 
printed in Italian, as were probably those placarded 
on the walls of Trieste? I cannot assert the latter 
as a fact, but the former I can. 

11 

The Italianism of the Trentino and of the other 
towns and valleys now held by Austria to the north 
of the Venetian plain is undisputed; any adjust- 
ment that is made after the war must give them 
to Italy. When we proceed eastward, however, 
and consider the proper lot of Istria and Dalmatia 
there are debatable points. The debate arises 
from the fact that the contention is no longer be- 
tween Italy and Austria but between Italy's desires 
and those of the Jugoslavs. For I feel, as I have 
said, that the Austrian Empire — holding in unwill- 
ing servitude Bohemia, part of Poland, Croatia, 
and the other Slavic provinces, and itself the ob- 
sequious servant and vassal of Germany — must 
cease to exist. Accordingly, the duty of the Con- 
gress will be to determine what will be the fairest 
arrangement to make to insure peace and good will 
among the independent states which shall take the 
place of the Austrian tributaries. 

The race which will border on the Italian on the 
east and will have rival claims to the freedom of the 



3 io VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COM. BATANT 

Adriatic is the Slavic. It follows, therefore, that 
the Congress must give a sympathetic hearing to 
the normal ambitions of the Slavs, of the proposed 
Jugoslav Federation which will occupy most of 
the northern half of the Balkan Peninsula. 

What will best satisfy the Balkan States? As- 
suming that they are free and independent — and 
the war will have been fought in vain if this assump- 
tion does not become a reality — what will be their 
demands as to the Adriatic? But first let us en- 
quire which will be the Balkan States after the war. 

I believe that Bosnia and Herzegovina ought to 
be joined to Serbia which must be strengthened in 
every possible way. For Serbia and Rumania 
form the great barrier against the Teutons if they 
should attempt again to carry out their Middle 
Europe project. The Serbs have fought valiantly 
and suffered horribly and they should be thus com- 
pensated. Not only because it will make them 
strong, but because their strength will protect 
Europe and Civilization against any renewal of the 
German piracy. Rumania, also, must be increased 
by the addition of her natural lands and kindred. 
Bulgaria, which has played a most despicable role 
in this war, should be correspondingly weakened 
by taking from her the territorial spoils which she 
had already seized. If Montenegro retains her 



ITALY AND THE ADRIATIC 311 

independent identity she will be too tiny to count 
much in any warlike concern, unless she has pos- 
session of the magnificent harbour, land-locked 
and spacious, of Cattaro which is now controlled 
by Austria on the north. Albania is a puzzle. 
The Albanians do not seem to have reached yet 
the stage of political development where they can 
set up and carry on a fairly civilized government. 
It has been suggested that the southern part of 
the country should be under an Italian Protecto- 
rate, while the northern part should be annexed to 
Serbia. The port of Valona is already Italian, 
pending the final decisions after the war. Greece, 
which is of course not Slavic, will keep her territor- 
ies and probably gain some additions on the north. 
So far as access to the Adriatic is concerned, the 
enlarged State of Serbia would most plausibly 
claim it; but if Italy took all Dalmatia this claim 
could not be satisfied. The Italians may object 
that the distance between Trieste at the top of the 
Adriatic and Valona at its southern end is too 
great to be guarded by them without more ports. 
In that case Cattaro, which lies about halfway 
between the two, seems to be geographically the 
best place for a third Italian base; always provided, 
of course, that a friendly arrangement can be made 
with Montenegro to this purpose. Friendliness 



3 i2 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

among the various Slav people of the Balkans is 
most essential and the Congress should take every 
precaution against leaving any cause of hatred, 
jealousy, or hostility to rankle among them. 

The Balkan peoples have never yet had a fair 
chance; until recently they were under the foul and 
brutal domination of the Turks. Having partially 
freed themselves from this, Bosnia and Herzego- 
vina fell victims to the deceitful Austrians who acted 
in collusion with the Germans. From 1908 to 19 14 
Serbia and Rumania lay under the menace of the 
Teutons whom the Bulgarians had begun to con- 
nive with. Free, unthreatened political life has 
therefore been impossible to the Balkanians, and 
this is precisely the life which the Congress must 
prepare for them. How far they have all reached 
capacity for self-government remains to be shown; 
certainly they are not all equally advanced. But 
under a Federation and under a larger League to 
Enforce Peace, they would have the best conditions 
for national development; at any rate, they must 
be given the chance. 

To come now to the question of the disposition 
to be made of Istria and Dalmatia. The Italian 
claim to Istria is based on historic grounds, on the 
alleged preponderance of the wishes of a majority 
of the population, and on the evident usefulness 



ITALY AND THE ADRIATIC 313 

to Italy of owning that province. Trieste espe- 
cially, the great Istrian seaport, must not remain in 
Austrian hands; for Austrian means also German. 
During more than a generation it has been the 
principal port of German commerce to the south. 
How often have the truculent German statesmen 
at Berlin called "Hands off!" to any suggestion 
that Trieste as a part of Italia Irredenta should be 
transferred to Italy! The schemes of the German 
World Empire took it forgranted that Trieste should 
be to them at the head of the Adriatic what Ham- 
burg was at the mouth of the Elbe. But the ques- 
tion for the Congress is, whether it would be better 
for European peace and development to have the 
Italians or the Jugoslavs own Trieste. There is no 
doubt that, relatively, the Italian majority in Trieste 
has been reduced and that the Slavic population has 
correspondingly increased. The Italians attribute 
this to the common German trick of bringing in 
colonists. The Slavs, on the other hand, assert 
that the increase of their people in Istria and at 
Trieste came about naturally and was not the re- 
sult of Austrian connivance. They say with 
truth, also, that until about twenty years ago the 
Austrians did not suspect that the Slavs themselves 
were soon to become a menace to the Hapsburg 
Empire in the southeast. 



3H VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

It seems to me that the simple thing for the Con- 
gress to do is to appoint an impartial commission 
to discover what the status of population in Istria 
and Dalmatia really is, and whether a valid major- 
ity wants to be under Italian or Slavic government. 
Where the population came from and how it hap- 
pens now to be in either of those provinces are 
questions of the past; the vital question touches the 
future : Which race is likely to be most benefited by 
controlling those provinces, and so to benefit their 
neighbours and the general European community? 

The war has taught with terrible emphasis that, 
as the lines are now drawn, Italy's protection in the 
Adriatic is wholly inadequate. Arguing from the 
need of her protection only, Italy ought to have 
Trieste; so long as Trieste remains Austrian, both 
in protection and in racial intentions, Italy will be 
incomplete and she will be exposed to a constant 
marine menace. This danger would persist even if 
Trieste were not owned by Austria but by some 
other Power, say that of the Jugoslavs, if this hap- 
pened to be hostile to Italy. 

What is true of Trieste applies also, though per- 
haps less forcibly, to the status of Istria. Pola, the 
port at the southern tip of the Istrian Peninsula, 
is the Austrian arsenal, and after the Teutonic 
navies were driven from the seas in August, 19 14, 



ITALY AND THE ADRIATIC 315 

it was the place from which submarines were fitted 
out, and to which they scurried for shelter. We 
have good reason to suspect that many of the 
U-boats which sailed thence to harry the Italian 
seacoast, to sink Italian ships in the Adriatic, and 
to work havoc on all Allied and neutral ships in 
the Mediterranean, were German ships, although 
during the first two years of the war Germany was 
at peace with Italy. Pola was likewise the base 
of the Austrian airplanes which operated along the 
Adriatic, and many of these, too, were German. 
This war, by revealing the importance of the sub- 
marine and the airplane, has led us to change 
radically our views as to the protection from 
attack which a country requires, and this is 
particularly true of the countries bordering on 
the Adriatic. 

Perhaps I ought to state more definitely who the 
Jugoslavs — or as they are called in some sections 
the Slovenes — are, and what is their racial aspira- 
tion. They are a branch of the great Slavic race 
occupying the Slovenian provinces of Austria, be- 
sides Croatia, Dalmatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, 
Montenegro, Serbia, and southern Hungary. 
Most of these districts have been unwilling vassals 
of Austria and they have looked forward for many 
years to freeing themselves and constituting a large 



3 i6 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

independent Slavic State, to which the name Jugo- 
slavia has recently been attached. 

Now these Jugoslavs do not listen enthusiasti- 
cally to the suggestion that they should emancipate 
themselves from the Hapsburgs in Istria and Dal- 
matia only to become subjects of Italy. According 
to their figures they actually outnumber the Ital- 
ians in those provinces, and they claim that the 
new boundary should be drawn to protect them. 
In the three-cornered competition which has gone 
on among the (German) Austrians, Italians, and 
Slovenes, the Jugoslavs assert that the Italians 
have been played against them. The Congress 
must settle the matter after having a report from 
an impartial commission, which should visit the 
disputed territory and hear evidence from both 
sides. If the protection of Italy be the main con- 
sideration, Istria and Trieste ought to be assigned 
to her. Trieste without Istria would probably 
wither; because we cannot predict how much Aus- 
trian and German commerce would flow through 
that city if it were held by the Italians. On the 
other hand, if the Jugoslavs expect to be a mari- 
time people, and I have grave doubts whether 
they could be one, they would naturally want 
Trieste. 

The possession of Dalmatia and its trade would 



ITALY AND THE ADRIATIC 317 

not compensate Italy for the continous ill-will 
and probable open hostility of its Slavic inhabi- 
tants. If Italy really needed a port between 
Trieste and Valona, Ragusa would seem to be the 
best for her, unless she could persuade the King of 
Montenegro to let her have Cattaro; but that is 
very doubtful. The harbour of Cattaro would 
serve equally well as a naval station and for com- 
merce, but it affords Montenegro its only access to 
the sea. 

Let us assume that Italy requires for defensive 
and strategic purposes, Trieste and Pola at the 
north and Valona, which will enable her to close 
the Adriatic at its narrowest point, at the south. 
Does she need also the Dalmatian Littoral for her 
protection? I hardly think so. The coast of 
Dalmatia is a network of inlets and small islands 
with intricate passages connecting them, all of 
which form a most favourable field in which sub- 
marines can hide and from which they can dart 
forth to damage the Italian towns opposite and 
Italian commerce wherever they find it. With 
Valona, however, Italy ought to be able to protect 
herself from these pests, especially if she controls 
Ragusa or Durazzo part way up the coast. 

For commerce the Jugoslavs would have Fiume, 
the New Port of which ought to satisfy all their 



3 i8 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

needs for many years to come. The population 
of Dalmatia is mixed Italian and Slavic. The 
Jugoslavs claim that the Italians wish to possess 
it, not for strategic purposes, but for commercial; 
in order that through Dalmatia they may flood 
Jugoslavia with Italian manufactures. This mat- 
ter, as I have said, ought to be referred to an im- 
partial commission. 

On the whole, I am inclined to doubt the ad- 
visability of restoring Dalmatia to Italy. At 
most, it is a mere shelf of land which tapers off 
to a point just below Ragusa. It shuts off the 
country to the east of it from the Adriatic; that 
country will be Serbia or Jugoslavia which will 
crave direct access to the sea. A high mountain 
ridge, however, separates the hinterland from 
Dalmatia. If the separation were complete, if 
the mountains were impassable, it might be well 
to regard Dalmatia as a projection from Istria, 
which we have assumed to be Italian, down to 
Ragusa, and so to include it among the lands to 
be assigned to Italy. But the mountains are not 
impassable and the Slavic peoples to the east of 
them will want to reach the Adriatic, and will be 
likely to resent being hemmed in by Italians in 
Dalmatia. Unless the Dalmatians clamour by 
overwhelming majority to be united with the 



ITALY AND THE ADRIATIC 319 

Italians, I fear that there will be perpetual feuds 
and misunderstandings. It may not be amiss to 
recall that Zara, the richest of the Dalmatian 
cities, was a dependency of the Venetian Republic 
for nearly eight centuries, during much of which 
time it was in a state of rebellion. Undoubtedly 
many of its revolutions were caused by the 
Hungarians, who wished to get possession of it 
and had a considerable faction in the city; but 
may not something similar happen again if the free 
Slavic States possess the hinterland and covet also 
the water front that is the Dalmatian coast ? 

It is to save Italy from such complications 
which would inevitably lead to wars that I would 
withhold Dalmatia from her. The worries and 
expense caused by unwilling colonies almost al- 
ways exceed any profit which they may bring 
to their owners. Above all, the Congress which 
will remake Europe after the war will be inspired 
by the principle that no people shall be held in 
bondage against its will by a stronger people. 
In some cases geography will no doubt clash with 
this principle. That Ireland should become a 
State independent of Great Britain seems to me, 
geographically, to be as unreasonable as that Long 
Island should be established as an independent 
nation. Only far greater tangles and strife could 



320 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

spring from such an arrangement. In the Balkans 
there are already too many seeds of discord — not 
only the memories and recriminations based on 
the recent wars, but the instinctive animosities of 
utterly different races and tribes and the mutually 
hostile religions. No new firebrand should be added. 
As the purpose of the Congress will be to con- 
trive the combination which seems the most 
likely to make peace instead of war the permanent 
condition and aim of civilized men, it will of 
course take from the nations which have caused 
the Atrocious War their power for harm. It will 
deprive Germany, the arch robber, of her booty; 
it will break up Austria; it will reduce their pal, 
Bulgaria, small, rapacious, and faithless. Turkey, 
which has too long outstayed her time in Europe, 
and is the same bloodthirsty, corrupt, unchanging 
and unchanged Turkey everywhere, must be sent 
out of Europe into Asia forever. Old peoples 
will be made new by the putting into practice of 
principles which are neither old nor new, but 
eternal. And new peoples will stride forth into 
noble and useful activities under the guidance 
of Freedom and Brotherhood. The world will 
no longer be deceived by the hideous Prussian 
doctrine that the good of all peoples must be 
sacrificed to the supremacy of one and that one, 



ITALY AND THE ADRIATIC 321 

Prussia under the Hohenzollerns. It will under- 
stand, on the contrary, that if a single people 
is wronged or crippled or enslaved, all must 
suffer, just as a withered arm, or an ailing heart, 
takes away from the whole vigour of a man. Under 
the happier conditions we are moving toward, Italy 
will be a great gainer, and whatever adds to the 
fullness of her life will be a gain for the world. 

I repeat, therefore, that the considerations 
which will come before the Congress touching 
the future of Istria and Dalmatia concern two 
nations only, Italy and the Jugoslavs. I do 
not include Austria because I do not expect that 
she will be left with power enough to harm these 
two. Our concern must be, therefore, to make 
the most mutually amicable arrangement be- 
tween Italy and the Jugoslavs; and not amicable 
at the moment only, but best for the lasting wel- 
fare and progress of them both. The importance 
to the world of a strengthened Italy does not need 
to be argued. I believe, also, that the Jugoslavs, 
if given a fair chance and honourable treatment, 
will make a valuable contribution to Civilization. 
The Slavs are coming on; they have qualities 
possessed by no other race; they should be en- 
couraged, not thwarted. Therefore, if the popula- 
tion of Dalmatia is, as they affirm, preponderantly 



322 VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT 

Slavic, both justice and prudence demand that 
Dalmatia be given to them. 

Being a well-wisher of Italy I could never ap- 
prove of any arrangement which seemed destined 
to bring harm to her. Being also opposed to 
Imperialism, based not on natural development 
but on greed or ambition, I should look with 
foreboding if she took Dalmatia only from im- 
perialistic motives. If the Dalmatians genuinely 
desire to become politically Italians, then let 
the union be made unless it would be of still 
greater benefit and importance to the general 
welfare to have the Jugoslavs possess Dalmatia. 
No matter how small a province may be, if it is 
hostile, it will be as a thorn in the side of its 
master. Even great empires have been exhausted 
by the long strain of conflict with a stubborn 
dependency. Italy should conserve her vitality and 
not waste on adventures abroad the vigour which 
she ought to apply to honest growth at home. 
So that I would not have her pursue haphazard 
enterprises in the Balkans or anywhere else. 

I have said nothing about Italy's indemnity. 
That, of course, will be proportional to her losses . 



END 



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